SHALL  WE  HAVE  A  REAL  ^AYY 
OR  A  SHAM  ^AVYI 


SPEECH 

OF 

HON.  ABRAM  S.  HEWITT 

OF  NEW  YORK, 

IN  THE 

HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES, 


JUNE  29,  1883. 


WASHINGTON 
1882. 


Soy  Sf 


SPEECH 

OK 

HON    ABEAM  S.  HEWITT 


The  House,  in  Committee  of  the  Whole  on  the  state  of  the  Union,  having  under 
consideration  the  hill  (H.  R.  No.  6616)  making  appropriations  for  the  naval  service 
for  the  fiscal  year  ending  Juno  30,  1883,  and  for  other  purposes — 

Mr.  HEWITT,  of  New  York,  said : 

I  desire  at  the  outset,  Mr.  Chairman,  to  express  my  thanks  to 
the  gentleman  from  New  Jersey  [Mr.  Robeson]  for  the  courtesy  of 
allowing  me  to  defer  the  delivery  of  my  remarks  from  yesterday 
till  to-day.  But  I  am  sure  he  will  he  as  sorry  as  I  am  that  his  courtesy 
has  heen  in  vain,  for  I  feel  less  ahle  to-day  to  engage  in  this  discussion 
than  I  was  yesterday. 

Mr.  ROBESON.  As  the  gentleman  from  New  York  is  not  well,  I 
hope  order  will  he  preserved  in  the  House,  so  we  may  hear  his  voice. 

Mr.  HEWITT,  of  New  York.  I  do  not  know  I  will  be  ahle  to 
speak  in  any  voice,  hut  I  shall  make  the  effort.  I  think  the  House, 
Mr.  Chairman,  has  some^  reason  to  find  fault  with  the  Committee  on 
Appropriations  for  the  delay  which  has  taken  place  in  reporting  this 
bill.  If  the  bill  is  intended  only  to  support  the  Navy  and  to  carry 
on  its  current  operations,  there  could  have  been  no  reason  why  it 
should  have  been  delayed  until  the  last  week  of  the  fiscal  year.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  bill  was  intended  for  general  legislation  in 
addition  to  providing  for  the  ordinary  course  of  expenditure,  then 
the  House  certainly  has  a  grievance  that  it  conies  in  at  the  very  tail 
of  the  session,  when  no  opportunity  is  afforded  for  the  consideration 
of  these  general  provisions,  or  for  determining  the  effect  they  are 
going  to  have  on  the  future  of  the  Navy. 

My  own  conclusion  is,  it  must  have  been  withheld  for  the  latter 
reason.  I  find  in  it  provisions  of  a  very  extraordinary  nature  which 
have  never  been  in  any  naval  appropriation  bill  at  anytime  within 
my  memory. 

To  two  of  these  items  I  propose  to  give  some  attention.  The  first 
is  the  provision  for  beginning  the  construction  of  two  new  vessels 
of  war.  The  second  is  the  provision  for  the  completion  of  the  moni- 
tors. 

Those  who  will  read  the  bill  attentively  will  find  there  is  a  very 
curious  distinction  made  in  the  bill  between  the  appropriations  for 
these  two  purposes.  In  reference  to  building  the  new  vessels  the 
language  is  that  the  Secretary  may  use  the  money.  There  is  no  ob- 
ligation imposed  on  him.  The  provision  is  permissive.  While  in 
regard  to  the  completion  of  the  monitors  the  language  is  that  he 
shall  expend  a  million  of  dollars,  which  is  appropriated  for  their 
completion.   This  provision  is  mandatory  and  not  permissive. 

Now,  whether  this  be  accident  or  design,  it  seems  to  me  that  it 
gives  the  key  to  the  delay  which  has  taken  place  in  reporting  this 
bill  and  to  the  peculiar  i^rovisions  of  the  bill.  In  other  words,  this  is 
a  bill  designed  in  fact  to  secure  the  completion  of  the  monitors. 


THE  MONITORS. 

I  have  no  wish  to  enter  into  a  history  of  those  vessels.  The  hu- 
miliating story  has  often  been  told.  What  I  desire  to  do  is  to  call 
attention  to  a  very  extraordinary  fact  in  the  history  of  these  mon- 
itors which  is  brought  out  by  the  provisions  of  this  bill,  and  which 
shows  that  they  have  no  legal  existence,  and  that  the  effect  of  this 
appropriation  is  for  the  first  time  to  give  them  a  legal  recognition. 

The  monitors  existed  in  1874.  They  were  live  vessels.  No  sug- 
gestion was  ever  made  from  any  quarter  I  can  discover,  and  I  have 
endeavored  to  read  every  line  referring  to  this  transaction — no  sug- 
gestion was  ever  made  except  for  the  repair  of  these  monitors.  The 
Secretary  of  the  Navy  refers  to  them  in  his  annual  report  of  1874-'75, 
and  again  in  his  annual  report  of  1875-'76  ;  and  in  both  cases  he  speaks 
of  the  repairs  of  these  monitors.  In  the  investigation  which  took 
place  in  the  Forty-fourth  Congress  the  Secretary  made  a  personal 
statement  before  the  committee,  and  in  that  statement,  as  I  have 
read  it  from  beginning  to  end  and  many  times,  in  defense  of  his  ac- 
tion in  regard  to  these  monitors  it  was  always  put  upon  the  ground 
of  repairs.  There  is  no  suggestion  anywhere  in  any  official  report, 
either  of  the  Secretary  or  of  any  head  of  bureau,  that  any  new  vessels 
were  to  be  built. 

The  question  for  which  the  Secretary  was  called  to  account,  if  I 
maybe  permitted  to  use  the  language,  in  the  Forty-fourth  Congress, 
was  whether  he  was  justified  in  using  old  materials  of  the  Navy  for 
the  repair  of  these  monitors,  not  in  the  navy-yards  of  the  United 
States,  for  about  that  there  was  no  controversy,  but  in  the  ship-yards 
of  contractors.  I  will  do  the  Secretary  the  justice  to  say  in  his  state- 
ment he  expressed  grave  doubts  as  to  wttiether  he  had  any  such 
authority.  He  says  he  consulted  the  Committee  on  Appropriations, 
and  the  evidence  shows  that  he  did  so ;  and  there  the  question  is 
always,  May  the  old  material  be  used  for  the  repair  of  vessels  which 
are  to  be  repaired  in  private  navy-yards  and  not  in  the  navy-yards 
of  the  United  States  ?  • 

The  Secretary  took  that  authority.  My  own  opinion  is  it  was  un- 
lawful, but  nevertheless  it  was  the  exercise  of  a  discretion  which  if 
properly  exercised  could  have  done  no  harm  to  the  public  interest, 
and  I  should  be  the  last  man  to  call  him  to  account  for  the  exercise 
of  authority  in  excess  of  the  law  which  he  thought  he  had  and  which 
was  intended  for  the  public  good. 

Now.  bearing  in  mind  that  repair  was  the  object  of  the  transac- 
tions which  have  resulted  in  giving  us  these  five  monitors  now  to 
dispose  of,  here  comes  a  very  remarkable  fact  as  to  one  of  these  ves- 
sels unquestionably,  and  as  to  the  others  probably,  but  in  what  I 
say  now  I  shall  refer  only  to  monitor  Puritan,  now  in  the  dock  of 
Mr.  John  Eoach,  at  Chester. 

In  his  report  of  1874  Secretary  Eobeson  says : 

Of  the  iron-clad  or  armored  vessels  sixteen  are  of  a  class  and  in  condition  for 
actual  and  efficient  service.  lour  of  the  class  of  powerful  douhle-turreted  monitors 
are  actually  in  hand  undergoing  repairs,  and  the  fifth  is  well  worth  the  same  at- 
tention. [Xote — The  fifth  was  the  Puritan.]  But  the  remainder  may  he  counted  as 
really  useless  for  any  actual  or  efficient  purpose. 

Now,  the  Secretary  sits  in  his  office  and  accepts,  as  in  the  very 
nature  of  things  he  must  accept,  as  facts  the  reports  of  his  heads  of 
bureaus.  So  I  turn  to  the  report  of  Mr.  Isaiah  Hanscom,  dated  De- 
cember 3,  1874,  to  the  Secretary,  and  from  which  undoubtedly  the 
Secretary  himself  made  up  his  report,  and  find  : 

As  yet  no  work  has  been  done  to  the  Puritan,  owing  to  the  want  of  funds  ;  hut 


"'a  design  is  being  prepared  to  make  that  vessel  a  powerful  iron-clad  with  a  high 
rate  of  speed,  to  be  armed  with  four  10-inch  rifled  guns,  to  be  heavily  plated,  &c. 

Now  let  it  be  remembered  that'  this  was  December  3,  1874,  on  the 
very  day  when  the  letter  of  Mr.  Hanscorn  to  Mr.  John  Roach,  or 
Mr.'  Roach  to  Mr.  Hanscom — I  forget  the  exact  order,  but  for  the 
present  purpose  it  is  immaterial — in  regard  to  the  Puritan  is  dated. 

Now  we  come  to  the  report  of  1875-'76,  and  in  this  the  Secretary- 
says,  under  the  head  of  "  iron-clads:" 

Five  of  them — 

That,  of  course,  means  the  other  four  and  the  Puritan,  namely,  the 
double-turreted  monitors  Anrphitrite,  Monadnojck,  Miantonomoh, 
and  the  Terror — 
are  in  process  of  complete  repair, — 

Note  the  word  "repair;"  under  repair  always  until  the  pending 
bill,  which  now  for  the  first  time  provides  for  their  completion  as 
new  vessels — 

requiring  from  four  to  sis  months  to  finish. 

And  I  may  state,  in  passing,  that  there  is  a  strange  discrepancy 
in  regard  to  the  time  that  is  allowed  for  the  completion  of  this  work 
between  the  head  of  the  bureau  and  the  statement  of  the  contractor, 
Mr.  Roach,  who  names  eighteen  months  in  his  letter  to  the  head  of 
that  bureau.  But  there  is  no  evidence  to  show  that  the  Secretary 
knew  any  thing  of  the  correspondence  between  Mr.  Hanscom  and 
Mr.  Roach. 

Now,  in  the  report  of  Mr.  Hanscom,  which  bears  date  November 
17,  1^75,  a  few  days  before  the  report  of  the  Secretary,  he  says  ; 

Plans  for  alteration  and  repair  of  the  Puritan  have  been  prepared  by  the  bureau 
and  her  repairs  have  been  commenced. 

Now  remember,  the  official  statement  that  the  Puritan  was  under 
repair  is  here  made  on  the  17th  day  of  November,  1875.  This  state- 
ment appears  not  only  in  the  report  of  the  head  of  the  bureau, 
but  in  the  report  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  himself.  Now  what 
was  the  fact  ?  The  Puritian,  at  the  time  when  this  report  was  writ- 
ten, and  for  several  months  afterward,  was  not  at  Chester  at  all  in 
the  yard  of  Mr.  John  Roach,  but  was  lying  at  League  Island,  and 
had  never  been  away  from  League  Island.  The  order  for  its  removal 
was  not  given  until  January  29,  1876,  and  it  was  not  delivered  at 
Chester  until  February  3,  1876. 

Yet  here  is  the  head  of  a  bureau  informing  the  Secretary  of  the 
Navy,  and  the  Secretary  believing  in  his  head  of  bureau,  as  he  ought 
to  have  done,  informs  the  President  and  the  President  informs  Con- 
gress  that  repairs  are  going  on  upon  the  Puritan  in  the  yard  of  John 
Roach  at  Chester,  when  the  Puritan  was  at  League  Island,  twenty 
miles  off,  and  not  one  particle  of  work  had  ever  been  done  upon  her 
in  the  way  of  repair.  I  believe  that  the  Secretary  was  deceived.  I 
have  known  him  too  long  and  too  well  to  believe  that  he  would  have 
informed  Congress  and  the  country  that  a  ship,  upon  which  nothing 
had  been  done,  wras  under  repairs  when  the  ship  being  built  from 
the  hull  up  was  in  one  place  and  the  ship  said  to  be  under  repair  was 
twenty  miles  distant  in  another  place.  I  have  referred  to  this  fact,. 
Mr.  Chairman,  for  only  one  reason. 

I  want  this  House  to  understand  how  dangerous  is  the  system 
which  allows  the  public  money  to  be  expended  by  the  heads  of 
bureaus,  responsible  to  no  one  except  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy, 
who  from  the  very  nature  of  the  case  must  take  their  word  as  true  \ 
and  who,  being  a  civilian,  is  not  expected  and  cannot  know  the  nat- 


6 


ure  of  the  work  going  on  in  the  various  navy-yards  of  the  country. 
That  same  Secretary  who  Avas  thus  deceived,  hood-winked,  bam- 
boozled— for  there  is  no  other  word  for  it — by  his  head  of  bureau, 
Mr.  Isaiah  Hanscom,  now  brings  a  bill  in  here  and  asks  us  to  ap- 
propriate money  to  finish  this  identical  ship  among  others ;  that  is 
to  say,  it  may  be  one,  for  the  Secretary  has  the  right  of  selection, 
and  being  so  he  will  most  probably  take  the  Puritan  as  one  of  those 
to  be  finished  under  this  bill.  I  say  this  gentleman  brings  in  a  bill 
without  one  single  safeguard  provided  against  the  waste  and  ex- 
penditure of  the  public  money  under  a  similar  condition  of  affairs 
which  may  arise  at.any  time.  That  is  the  moral  I  want  to  draw, 
from  this  history  of  the  monitors.  I  confirm  every  word  that  has 
been  said  by  the  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Naval  Affairs  in  re- 
gard to  the  importance  of  interposing  between  the  Secretary  and 
heads  of  bureaus  the  supervisory  board,  that  shall  take  charge  of  the 
expenditures  for  the  Navy  Department.  My  purpose  then  to-day, 
and  it  is  my  sole  purpose,  for  I  would  not  revive  these  scandals  for 
any  mere  iiersonal  annoyance,  but  I  revive  them  only  now  in  the 
public  interest,  that  it  shall  be  made  impossible  for  any  head  of  a 
bureau,  honest  or  dishonest,  to  deceive  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  so 
that  he  will  be  put  into  the  humiliating  attitude  of  saying  to  Con- 
gress that  a  ship  is  under  repair  at  one  place,  when  the  facts  of  the 
matter  are  that  it  is  twenty  miles  distant  in  a  different  yard,  and  no 
work  being  done  upon  it  at  all,  while  an  entirely  new  ship  is  being 
built  somewhere  else. 

VALUE  OF  THE  MONITORS. 

No  safeguard  is  provided,  then,  against  the  wasteful  expenditure 
of  this  money.  Whether  these  monitors  were,  as  I  believe,  con- 
ceived in  sin  and  brought  forth  in  iniquity,  or  whether  they  are 
the  fruit  of  lawful  commerce  between  the  contractors  and  the  Navy 
Department,  which  I  do  not  believe,  nevertheless  we  have  got  the 
ships;  we  have  paid  three  millions  and  a  half  of  the  public  money 
on  them ;  we  are  invited  to  spend  four  millions  and  a  half  more  to 
finish  them ;  and  the  question  is  presented  to  us  as  intelligent  Rep- 
resentatives whether  we  had  better  throw  away  the  money  which 
has  been  expended,  or  cast  good  money  after  bad  and  lose  that  also. 
If  these  ships  will  be  good  ships,  valuable  ships,  such  as  my  friend, 
the  chairman  of  the  committee,  would  recommend  this  Congress  to 
build  after  his  years  of  patient  study  of  these  questions,  after  his 
honorable  service  in  this  House,  to  which  I  wish  to  bear  testimony — 
if  they  are  such  monitors  as  he,  with  his  judgment,  founded  upon 
the  experience  of  the  best  minds  in  the  Navy,  will  recommend  this 
House  to  build,  then  I  say  let  us  appropriate  the  money  for  building 
them.  But  if  they  are  of  even  doubtful  utility  they  ought  not  to 
be  finished,  because  four  million  and  a  half  of  dollars  will  give  us 
two  or  three  of  those  swift  cruisers  of  which  the  gentleman  has  been 
speaking  this  morning,  and  in  the  importance  of  which  I  absolutely 
agree  with  him.  They  will  give  us  two  of  those  mighty  rams  that 
will  run  down  any  ship  that  may  seek  to  enter  our  harbors. 

Therefore  take  the  money,  if  we  are  going  to  spend  it,  and  let  us 
xjease  to  cry  over  spilled  milk ;  let  us  use  this  money  in  doing  some 
good  work  which  will  satisfy  the  just  expectations  of  the  country. 
For  a  navy  we  want,  and  a  navy  this  country  will  always  have.  But, 
as  I  said  the  other  day,  it  is  a  real  navy  and  not  a  sham  navy  that 
the  people  of  this  country  want.  They  are  willing  to  wipe  out  the 
past;  they  are  willing  to  forgive  the  men  who  have  wasted  their 
money,  lawfully  or  unlawfully.  But  they  say  to  us  here,  "let  there 


7 


be  an  end  to  this  business ;  now,  go  to  work  and  give  ns  a  navy." 
And  I  go  hand  in  hand  with  my  friend,  the  chairman  of  the  commit- 
tee, in  his  efforts.  They  have  been  most  intelligent.  We  owe  him 
a  debt  of  gratitude  for  the  manner  in  which  he  has  pursued  this  busi- 
ness from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  and  for  that  vast  amount  of  tes- 
timony, most  valuable  and  most  suggestive,  which  he  has  taken  in 
the  course  of  this  investigation.  And  if  I  intervened  at  any  point 
in  this  matter,  I  want  him  to  understand  now  that  it  was  not  my 
purpose  to  obstruct  him  but  to  help  him. 

From  the  study  I  had  given  the  subject  I  saw  there  was  not  infor- 
mation enough  for  this  House  to  proceed  intelligently  to  pass  upon 
the  bill  of  the  chairman  of  the  committee  for  which  he  wished  to  se- 
cure discussion  ;  I  say  there  is  not  information  enough  now.  There 
remain  questions  to  be  answered  which  I  have  formulated  in  a  reso- 
lution of  the  gravest  consequence  before  we  act  intelligently  on  that 
bill  which  he  has  drawn  up  so  carefully  with  safeguards  which  re- 
ceive my  approbation,  and  which  are  in  striking  contrast  to  the  total 
absence  of  safeguards  in  this  bill  reported  by  the  Committee  on  Ap- 
propriations. 

Now,  how  do  the  Appropriations  Committee  bolster  up,  so  to  speak, 
in  this  House  the  recommendation  which  they  make  as  to  the  com- 
pletion of  these  monitors  in  their  report  which  I  hold  in  my  hand  ? 

Mr.  ATKINS.  If  it  will  not  interrupt  the  gentleman  I  should  like 
to  ask  him,  at  the  point  he  is  at  now,  what  would  he  do  with  these 
ships  if  he  would  not  finish  them  ? 

Mr.  HEWITT,  of  New  York.  I  know  the  gentleman  asks  the  ques- 
tion in  good  faith. 

Mr.  ATKINS.    I  do. 

Mr.  HEWITT,  of  New  York.  If  they  are  not  going  to  make  such 
ships,  the  best  possible  ships,  such  as  we  want  in  this  country,  I 
would  sell  them  for  old  iron  and  begin  again.  But  if  they  are  good 
ships,  such  as  we  want,  I  would  go  on  and  finish  them.  But  I 
will  say  to  the  gentleman  from  Tennessee  that  I  disclaim  entirely  to 
speak  as  an  expert  in  this  business.  I  have  not  so  spoken.  I  am 
only  studying  this  subject,  as  I  said  the  other  day.  But  in  my  opin- 
ion the  best  use  to  be  made  of  the  money  proposed  to  be  expended 
on  these  monitors  would  be  to  build  entirely  new  ships  of  the  type 
most  approved  by  the  best  minds  of  the  country,  proceeding  on  the 
knowledge  we  have  got  and  the  recent  experience  of  other  nations. 

One  would  infer  from  this  report  that  this  application  of  money 
to  finish  the  monitors  was  approved  by  three  parties ;  first,  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Navy,  Mr.  Chandler,  who  writes  a  letter  recommending  it. 
So  far  as  I  know,  this  is  his  first  official  act.  I  cannot  say  it  is  a  very 
good  beginning.  I  ha  ve  great  respect  for  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy, 
for  his  ability,  and,  when  he  knows  his  business,  for  his  capacity 
to  do  work.  I  have  experienced  it  myself  in  other  spheres  of  action. 
No  man  ever  did  more  faithful  work  for  his  party  than  he  did  in 
1876 ;  and  if  he  does  as  good  work  for  the  Navy  as  he  then  did  for 
the  Republican  party,  he  will  be  the  best  Secretarj'  of  the  Navy  we 
have  ever  had  in  this  country.  [Laughter.  ]  He  quotes  Mr.  Thomp- 
son, who  he  says  recommends  it,  while  Mr.  Thompson  simply  acted 
upon  the  report  of  a  board.  He  does  not  quote  Mr.  Hunt,  who  does 
not  recommend  it.  Now,  I  think  the  value  of  the  opinion  of  Mr. 
Thompson  and  Mr.  Hunt  and  Mr.  Chandler  is  just  about  equal,  each 
to  the  other,  as  to  this  business  of  finishing  monitors.  It  is  very 
possible  neither  one  of  them  ever  saw  a  monitor  ;  I  am  not  quite  sure 
about  that,  however. 


8 


The  next  authority  presented  by  the  committee  consists  of  an  ex- 
tract from  the  report  of  Admiral  David  D.  Porter  to  the  Secretary 
of  the  Navy,  dated  November  6,  1874,  in  which  the  recommendation 
is  distinctly  made  that  monitors  of  the  kind  which  we  now  have 
upon  the  stocks  would  be  valuable  vessels,  and  that  they  ought  to 
be  built. 

The  first  thing  that  struck  me  with  surprise  on  reading  that  ex- 
tract was  the  date  of  the  letter,  in  1874,  about  eight  years  ago.  The 
gentleman  from  Massachusetts  [Mr.  Harris]  has  told  us  what  a  revo- 
lution eight  years  has  produced  in  naval  warfare.  What  was  good 
eight  years  ago  is  utterly  worthless  now.  So  I  wrote  a  note  to  Ad- 
miral Porter,  telling  him  that  I  had  found  that  recommendation  in 
the  report  of  the  committee,  and  asking  him  whether  he  still  adhered 
to  it.    I  will  read  his  answer : 

1710  H  STREET,  XORTHWEST, 

June  26,  1882. 

Mr  Dear  Sir  :  I  beg  leave  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  your  communication 
of  the  24th  instant. 

You  will  observe  in  iuy  annual  report  for  1881,  addressed  to  Mr.  Secretary  Hunt, 
page  96  of  Secretary  of  the  Xavy's  report,  that  I  recommended  these  monitors 
should  be  finished  on  the  plan  recommended  by  the  late  Chief  Constructor  Len- 
thall,  if  finished  at  all. 

I  call  the  attention  of  the  Committee  of  the  Whole  to  the  fact  that 
even  Mr.  Lenthall's  recommendations,  which  are  to  be  found  in  a  very 
elaborate  document  printed  in  1880,  and  which  I  have  here  on  my 
desk — even  Mr.  Lenthall's  recommendations  as  read  this  morning, 
by  the  way,  by  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts,  [Mr.  Harris,]  are 
of  the  most  qualified  sort.  He  condemns  the  monitors  on  any  plan 
that  had  up  to  that  time  been  adopted  for  their  completion.  He  does 
suggest  in  1880  certain  modifications  which  if  made  might  make  tLem 
useful  vessels  of  war.    Admiral  Porter  further  says: 

Mr.  Lenthall  made  a  minority  report  on  this  subject,  which  report  is  referred  to 
by  me  in  my  annual  report  above  mentioned.  I  inclose  you  a  copy  of  Mr.  Len- 
thall's report  which  will  give  yon  all  the  necessary  information. 

I  think  if  the  monitors  are  finished  on  the  plan  proposed  by  the  board  they  will 
not  amount  to  much  :  finished  on  Mr.  Lenthall  s  plan  they  would  help  protect  our 
ports  against  Spanish  ships  of  war.  as  that  power  has  not  any  very  heavily  plated 
iron-clads.  and  is  the  country  with  whom  we  are  most  likely  to  have  trouble. 

Now,  it  is  certain  that  any  vessel  that  can  take  care  of  an  English 
or  a  French  or  an  Italian  iron-clad,  can  also  take  care  of  a  Spanish 
iron-clad,  but  any  vessel  that  will  only  take  care  of  a  Spanish  iron- 
clad would  be  like  a  card-box  against  the  vessels  of  the  other  great 
naval  powers.    Admiral  Porter  concludes  as  follows  : 

As  to  finishing  these  vessels  without  a  carefully  devised  plan,  or  without  follow- 
ing Mr.  Lenthall's  suggestions,  they  will  be  no  better  than  the  vessels  they  are 
copied  after.  Many  officers  of  the  Xavy  think  the  vessels  should  not  be  finished 
at  all ;  but  there  is  some  good  in  them  as  far  as  they  go,  and  if  Mr.  Lenthall's  plans 
are  carried  out  they  can  he  made  serviceable  for  harbor  defense,  as  I  before  re- 
marked. 

I  think  the  reports  I  have  mentioned  will  give  you  what  you  require  in  the  way 
of  information. 

Very  respectfully  yours, 

DAVID  D.  POETEE,  Admiral 

Hon.  A.  S.  Hewitt,  M.  C. 

I  think  that  disposes  of  the  authority  sought  to  be  given  to  this 
recommendation  by  the  great  name  of  Admiral  Porter. 

Mr.  WH1TTHOKXE.  Will  the  genth-man  from  New  York  [Mr. 
HEWITT]  just  in  that  connection  allow  me  to  call  attention  to  the 
report  made  by  the  Committee  on  Appropriations,  which  purports 
to  give  an  extract  from  the  report  of  Secretary  Thompson,  made  to- 


9 


Congress  May  20,  1880  ?  If  the  gentleman  is  going  to  refer  to  it  him- 
self, well  and  good;  I  will  not  interrupt  him. 

Mr.  HEWITT,  of  New  York.  The  only  reason  why  I  have  not 
made  larger  extracts  from  that  report  is  simply  because  I  had  so 
little  time  that  I  thought  I  could  not  afford  it. 

Mr.  WHITTHOKNE.  If  I  do  not  interrupt  the  gentleman,  I  beg 
leave  to  call  his  attention  and  the  attention  of  the  committee  to  the 
wrong  impression  that  would  be  made  in  that  regard  by  the  report 
from  the  Committee  on  Appropriations,  in  that  it  quotes  only  apart 
of  what  Secretary  Thompson  said,  and  fails  to  quote  just  what  he 
did  say  in  connection  with  and  in  pursuance  of  the  idea  of  Admiral 
Porter  as  just  now  read,  and  of  the  report  of  the  late  constructor, 
Lenthall. 

Mr.  HEWITT,  of  New  York.  The  next  authority  quoted  by  the 
committee  is  from  Rear- Admiral  Worden  in  a  recent  letter  dated 
April  15,  1882.  I  addressed  a  similar  letter  to  Admiral  Worden,  but 
I  have  been  informed  that  he  is  ill  and  out  of  Washington,  and  I 
have  received  no  answer. 

Now,  I  beg  to  call  the  attention  of  the  committee  to  the  fact  that 
the  letter  of  Admiral  Worden  simply  contains  an  approval  of  the 
monitor  system.  He  approves  of  monitors,  but  is  careful  to  refrain 
absolutely  from  uttering  one  word  of  recommendation  in  reference 
to  these  monitors  of  ours.  So  far  as  his  authority  goes,  he  simply 
supports  the  general  doctrine  that  monitors  are  good  for  vessels,  but 
says  nothing  iu  favor  of  these  monitors. 

There  is  another  significant  fact,  that  the  advisory  board  convened 
by  Secretary  Hunt  for  the  express  purpose  of  considering  what  ves- 
sels we  should  provide  for  a  navy,  never  so  much  as  gave  an  inti- 
mation that  these  five  monitors  are  of  any  value  or  ought  to  be  fin- 
ished. They  light  shy  of  them.  The  omission  of  the  board,  even 
to  refer  to  these  vessels,  I  hold  to  be  an  absolute  condemnation  of 
these  ships,  so  far  as  any  claim  that  they  are  such  ships  as  this  coun- 
try wants  us  to  provide  for  a  navy. 

More  than  that ;  there  was  a  conference  held  between  the  Com- 
mittee on  Naval  Affairs  of  the  House,  the  Committee  on  Naval  Af- 
fair of  the  Senate,  this  advisory  board,  and  Secretary  Hunt.  I  have 
the  documents  here  and  will  refer  gentlemen  to  them.  In  that  con- 
ference not  one  word  was  uttered  in  regard  to  these  five  monitors,  nor 
was  any  recommendation  made  for  their  completion. 

But  at  that  conference  there  was  the  most  absolute  condemnation 
of  the  methods  upon  which  the  money  appropriated  to  the  Navy  De- 
partment has  been  expended,  that  is  to  say,  by  the  heads  of  bureaus, 
irresponsible  to  no  human  being,  unless  it  be  to  the  Secretary  of  the 
Navy,  who  from  the  very  nature  of  his  training  is  not  competent  to 
pass  upon  their  action,  as  I  have  already  shown. 

It  is  all  summed  up  in  the  remarks  of  Commander  Evans,  and  I 
propose  to  read  them  as  concluding  all  that  is  necessary  to  say  on  the 
subject  of  providing  an  intermediary  tribunal  as  contemplated  in  the 
naval  bill,  and  which  has  been  urged  so  strongly  by  the  gentleman 
from  Massachusetts,  [Mr.  Harris,]  and  for  which  I  propose  to  pro- 
vide by  an  amendment  which  I  shall  offer  to  this  bill  at  the  proper 
stage : 

The  Chairman.  Is  not  that  the  system  that  must  be  adopted  in  order  to  build 
these  ships  successfully  ? 

Commander  Evans.  It  seems  to  me  so.  The  way  that  the  work  has  cone  on  in 
the  Xavy  heretofore  has  been,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  ridiculous.  The  old  plan  was 
this :  When  a  ship  was  to  be  built  the  constructors  would  build  her  hull :  when 
that  was  done,  and  the  engineers  came  to  look  at  it.  they  would  say :  "  Ilallo.  there 


10 


is  no  room  here  for  the  engines."  So  they  would  put  her  down  a  foot  more  in  the 
Wttter ;  and  then  when  the  ordnance  officer  came  along  he  would  say  the  hatches 
were  too  close  to  the  water-ways,  so  that  the  guns  couldn't  he  mounted  ;  then  the 
equipment  officer  would  complain  that  he  couldn't  swing  men  enough  to  fight  the 
guns,  and  so  on.   I  think  it  is  time  that  system  was  stopped. 

The  Chairmax.  Do  you  think  it  is  possible  to  make  auy  progress  until  we  have 
a  head  to  this  business  ;  one  executive  and  a  board  of  advisers  at  the  head  ? 

Commander  Evaxs".  Ithink  that  to  build  these  ships  successfully  you  must  have 
a  board  to  do  it,  and  the  plans  must  be  prepared  by  that  board.  The  plans  of  the 
engines  must  be  given  to  the  engineer  to  build  ;  and  the  plan  of  the  hull  to  the 
constructor,  and  so  on  throughout  each  department  of  the  ship.  You  must  say  to 
each,  "  There  are  yourplaus  ;  do  not  vary  an  iuch  one  way  or  the  other ;  "  and  then, 
if  the  parts  do  not  fit  when  the  ship  is  finished,  you  had  better  hang  some  of  these 
people. 

The  Chairmax.  Do  you  not  know  that  in  the  Xavy  in  the  past  there  has  been  a 
strong  hostility  to  an  advisory  board  of  this  character  ? 

Commander  Evaxs.  Xo,  sir";  not  in  the  Xavy,  Ithink.  There  has  been,  though, 
in  the  Xavy  Department.  The  bureau  officers,  naturally,  will  always  be  opposed 
to  any  thing  that  cuts  their  power  or  authority. 

The  Chairmax.  Do  you  not  think  that  it  existed  among  the  line  officers  as  well 
as  the  staff  ? 

Commander  Evaxs.  Xo.  sir ;  I  think  not.  I  never  heard  a  line  officer  express 
that  feeling  in  my  life.  On  the  contrary,  I  have  heard  a  great  many  of  the  line 
officers  pray  for  "the  day  when  we  would  have  a  board  organized.  You  see  the 
ine  officer  is  the  man  who  suiters  most  from  the  evils  we  have  been  speaking  of. 
The  line  officer  finds  himself  sent  to  sea  in  ships  that  cannot  fight  and  that  are 
utterly  unseaworthy.  I  have  had  some  experience  in  one  of  them  myself,  the 
Delaware,  in  China.  That  vessel  rolled  thirty-seven  degrees  each  way,  and  if 
you  had  cast  a  gun  loose  it  would  have  taken  charge  of  the  whole  concern. 

The  Chairmax.  "Where  is  that  ship  now? 

Commander  Evaxs.  She  is  now  the  hospital  ship  at  Xew  York. 
The  Chairmax.  And  worthless  for  any  naval  purpose  ? 

Commander  Evaxs.  Utterly  so.  She  was  commenced  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
war  and  finished  just  about  the  close  of  the  war.  Her  tonnage  was  about  3,200 
tons.   She  went  to  China  on  one  cruise,  and  that  is  about  all  she  has  ever  done. 

Nothing  can  add.  to  the  force  of  a  statement  of  that  sort  coming 
from  so  accomplished  an  officer;  hut  there  are  confirmations  from 
all  quarters,  and  I  have  collated  a  large  number  of  just  such  speci- 
mens of  testimony.    But  I  leave  the  matter  there. 

Now,  waiving  questions  of  order  for  the  present,  unless  this  bill 
be  amended  so  as  to  provide  for  practical  supervision  in  the  expend- 
iture of  this  money,  either  upon  the  monitors  or  upon  new  ships,  I 
think  I  am  justified  in  saying  that  it  will  be  money  absolutely  thrown 
away  ;  and  perhaps  it  was  intended  to  be  thrown  away.  I  do  not 
know  how  this  may  be,  but  at  any  rate  I  think  I  may  a^meal  to  fair- 
minded  men  on  both  sides  to  concede  the  necessity  of  adopting  proper 
safeg  uards  as  to  the  expenditure  of  this  money. 

Now,  I  come  to  the  value  of  these  mouitors.  I  have  shown  you 
that  there  is  the  very  gravest  doubt  as  to  whether  they  will  be  of 
any  use  when  they  are  done.  There  is,  however,  one  set  of  men  who 
have  no  earthly  doubt  about  the  propriety  of  finishing  these  moni- 
tors— uo  earthly  doubt  that  they  will  be  the  best  ships  in  the  world 
when  finished ;  and  these  men  are  the  contractors.  They  had  a  hear- 
ing on  February  16,  1882,  before  the  Committee  on  Naval  Afiairs,  of 
which  my  friend  from  Massachusetts,  [Mr.  Harris,  ]  who  has  been 
indefatigable  in  trying  to  get  at  the  truth  in  this  business,  is  chair- 
man. Mr.  Gause,  of  the  Harlan  &  Hollingsworth  Company,  makes 
the  following  assertion : 

Opposition  to  these  monitors  has  come  from  a  certain  quarter.  It  grows  mainly 
out  of  the  fact  that  a  monitor  is  the  most  undesirable  ship  for  a  line  officer  to  go 
to  sea  in  that  ever  was  constructed,  because  in  a  monitor  they  have  to  live  com- 
paratively under  water.  That  is  one  of  the  great  objections  to  these  monitors 
for  line  officers,  and  I  do  not  blame  them  for  it.  The  idea  of  cruising  in  a  monitor 
for  months  is  something  appalling  to  think  of. 


11 


This  is  the  testimony  of  a  contractor — that  after  yon  have  fin- 
ished these  ships  the  idea  of  putting  a  line  officer  on  hoard,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  crew  and  the  engineers  and  firemen,  is  simply  appall- 
ing. Do  we  want  to  hnild  dungeons?  Is  that  what  we  are  after? 
Surely  some  other  type  of  ship  will  he  devised  free  from  these  objec- 
tions. Other  nations  do  not  huild  such  sepulchers,  and  we  ought 
not  to  huild  them.  I  for  one  will  not  vote  a  dollar  for  the  purpose 
of  sending  a  line  officer,  possibly  a  De  Long  or  a  Melville  or  a 
Danenhower,  to  he  sacrificed  in  a  vessel  which  this  contractor  says 
it  is  appalling  to  think  of. 

OPPOSITION'  TO  THE  MONITORS. 

Opposition  to  these  monitors  is  not  confined  to  line  officers.  It 
comes  mainly  from  the  staif  officers ;  it  arises  from  the  fact  that 
they  were  begun  before  they  were  designed.  They  have  been  designed 
many  times  since  they  were  begun.  Every  new  board  or  expert  di- 
rected to  examine  them  finds  grave  defects  in  the  various  designs, 
that  must  be  corrected  at  the  expense  of  the  Government  for  the 
benefit  of  the  contractors.  The  money  thus  far  expended  on  them 
without  authority  of  law  has  been  thrown  away,  and  further  expend- 
iture would  be  a  further  waste  of  money  until  the  plans  for  com- 
pleting them  have  been  subjected  to  a  critical  examination,  the 
computations  verified,  and  specific  contracts  for  the  work  to  be  ex- 
ecuted entered  into  with  responsible  men.  Opposition  on  the  part 
of  Congress  and  the  public  is  based  on  the  fact  that  these  unfinished 
monitors  have  no  legal  existence. 

In  regard  to  the  Puritan,  I  understand — and  I  have  given  you  the 
evidence — that  she  was  built  as  a  new  vessel  from  the  word  "go," 
when  the  old  vessel  was  twenty  miles  away.  Is  there  a  lawyer  in  this 
House  who  will  tell  me  that  the  Puritan  in  the  yard  of  John  Roach 
is  a  legal  structure  to-day  ? 

Opposition  must  inevitably  exist  to  the  completion  of  these  moni- 
tors on  the  part  of  every  law-abiding,  honest  man  in  this  country  who 
examines  into  their  origin  and  progress  and  who  is  not  prepared  to 
sanction  the  assumption  by  a  subordinate  staff  officer  of  the  Navy 
Department  of  the  powers  conferred  on  Congress  alone.  For  let  it 
be  remembered  that  the  order  to  build  that  ship  was  not  given  by  the 
Secretary  of  the  Navy  ;  I  find  no  evidence  of  that ;  the  order  was 
given  by  Isaiah  Hauscom,  an  ordinary  bureau  officer,  in  an  ordi- 
nary letter,  without  any  contract  being  drawn  by  auy  human  being. 

In  the  various  documents  which  have  been  submitted  to  Congress 
in  relation  to  these  unfinished  monitors,  in  the  testimony  that  has 
been  reluctantly  given  by  the  contractors  themselves,  there  is  abun- 
dant proof  that,  with  the  exception  of  the  Monadnock,  they  were 
ordered  to  be  built  by  the  Chief  of  the  Bureau  of  Construction,  not 
only  without  authority  of  law,  but,  so  far  as  can  be  ascertained, 
without  authority  from  the  President  or  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  and 
in  the  case  of  the  Puritan  without  even  the  knowledge  of  his  asso- 
ciates in  the  Department. 

Curiously  enough  tenders  were  received  for  the  Monadnock.  It 
is  the  duty  of  the  Chief  of  the  Construction  Bureau  to  report  annu- 
ally to  the  Secretary,  and  to  attach  to  the  report  a  list  of  the  tenders 
he  has  accepted.  There  is  no  such  report  as  to  the  Puritan,  the  Ter- 
ror, the  Amphitrite,  or  any  of  the  others  except  the  Monadnock.  Iu 
the  case  of  the  latter  vessel  there  is  attached  to  his  report  a  state- 
ment that  tenders  were  opened  and  that  the  work  was  awarded  to 
the  lowest  bidder.  Here  is  the  confession  of  this  man  that  there 
was  a  legal  obligation  to  give  the  work  upon  tenders  to  the  lowest 


12 


bidder.  I  do  not  know  why  lie  made  this  confession;  but  plainly 
there  is  a  negative  pregnant :  in  the  one  case  he  did  it;  why  did  he 
not  do  it  in  the  case  of  the  other  four  ?  If  it  was  not  a  corrupt  job, 
why  was  no  competition  permitted? 

I  repeat  that  except  in  the  case  of  the  Monadnock  they  were  or- 
dered to  be  built  by  the  Chief  of  the  Bureau  of  Construction,  not 
only  without  authority  of  law,  but,  so  far  as  can  be  ascertained,  with- 
out authority  from  the  President  or  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  unless 
the  Secretary  will  tell  us  to-day  that  he  gave  the  authority,  and  I 
hope  he  will  tell  us  when  he  takes  the  floor.  There  is  nothing  on 
record  to  show  that  the  Secretary  ever  gave  such  an  order,  and  in 
the  case  of  the  Puritan  work  was  done  without  even  the  knowledge 
of  the  officer's  associates  in  the  Department.  Two  of  the  bureaus — 
the  Bureau  of  Construction  and  Repair,  headed  by  that  honest  and 
able  man,  John  Lenthall,  and  the  Bureau  of  Steam-Engineering, 
headed  by  Isherwood — did  not  know  that  the  order  had  been  given; 
so  these  officers  have  stated. 

Mr.  ROBESON.  Does  the  gentleman  know  that  Lenthall  and  Isher- 
wood had  neither  of  them  been  in  the  bureau  for  five  years  before 
that? 

Mr.  HEWITT,  of  New  York.  I  said  "  without  the  knowledge  of  his 
associates  in  the  Department."  I  did  not  say  that  they  were  heads 
of  bureaus  at  the  time.  I  know  that  the  place  was  made  too  hot  to 
hold  those  honest  men. 

ARE  THEY  LAWFUL  STRUCTURES? 

I  say  that  Congress  cannot  appropriate  money  to  complete  these 
monitors  without  tacitly  acknowledging  their  legal  existence  and 
admitting  that  a  subordinate  naval  officer  who  happened  to  be  on 
duty  as  a  chief  of  bureau  in  a  Department  was  justified  in  involving 
the  Government  in  an  expenditure  of  ten  or  twelve  million  dollars  in 
defiance  of  law  and  without  regard  to  consequences. 

Instead  of  appropriating  money  for  the  completion,  Congress 
should  instruct  the  legal  officers  of  the  Government  to  institute 
proceedings  to  recover  what  has  been  already  spent  on  these  ves- 
sels. I  do  not  know  how  much  responsibility  the  Secretary  may 
choose  to  assume,  but  if  ever  I  was  clear  on  any  subject  I  am  con- 
vinced by  the  evidence  I  have  stated  that  there  was  a  corrupt  bar- 
gain between  Isaiah  Han  scorn  and  the  contractors,  who  are  there- 
fore participes  criminis,  and  entitled  to  no  consideration  and  no  in- 
dulgence from  this  House. 

In  the  statement  which  the  Secretary  made  before  the  committee 
in  the  Forty-fourth  Congress,  he  very  properly  and  carefully  says 
that  all  a  Secretary  can  do  is  to  approve  of  the  general  principle  by 
which  the  old  material  was  to  be  used  in  the  repairs  of  new  vessels. 
But  he  says  the  work  must  be  done  by  the  heads  of  bureaus,  "  ex- 
perts," as  he  calls  them;  and  he  never  issued  an  order  himself  in 
reference  to  any  of  these  details.  And  I  think  the  Secretary  tells, 
as  he  always  endeavors  to  tell,  the  exact  truth.  I  cannot  discover 
the  evidence  of  any  such  order,  although  I  find  plenty  of  orders  is- 
sued by  his  subordinates. 

Now,  let  some  one  point  out  the  specific  or  the  general  authority 
of  Congress  for  this  expenditure  on  these  monitors.  I  have  pointed 
out  the  peculiar  manner  by  which  the  Secretary  explains  how  he 
came  to  take  the  responsibility ;  that  as  he  had  the  right  to  use  the 
old  material  in  re  pairs  in  the  navy-yards,  he  thought  by  parity  of 
reasoning  he  might,  if  he  made  a  contract  with  a  contractor,  take 
the  old  materials  and  pay  the  contractor  with  them  instead  of  money. 


13 


"While  the  law  and  the  practice  is  clear  as  to  the  navy-yard,  but  there 
is  no  law  and  there  was  no  precedent  for  paying  a  contractor  with 
any  thing  bat  money,  and  there  is  no  safety  in  any  other  course.  I 
often  have  occasion  to  say  I  am  no  lawyer,  but  there  are  some  prop- 
ositions which  offend  one's  sense,  that  underlying  sense,  I  suppose, 
upon  which  all  law  is  built  up,  and  I  cannot  discover  the  slightest 
justification  by  which  these  materials  were  turned  over  to  the  con- 
tractors in  payment  for  what  .'  In  repair  of  ships?  I  "have  shown 
it  was  not  repair,  but  for  building  an  entire  new  ship,  twenty  miles 
away  from  the  ship  that  was  said  to  be  repaired. 

It  would  seem  impossible  more  forcibly  to  illustrate  the  need  of 
reform  in  our  naval  administration,  but  the  worst  remains  to  be  told. 
The  origin  of  the  new  Puritan  appears  in  an  offer  made  to  Mr.  Hans- 
com,  dated  December  3,  1874,  by  Mr.  John  Roach,  of  Chester.  That 
is  the  date  when  Mr.  Hanscom  signs  his  letter  to  the  Secretary  in 
which  he  says  that  nothing  is  being  done  on  the  Puritan.  On  that 
very  date,  and,  I  suppose,  within  five  minutes  after  he  signed  his 
name  to  that  statement,  Mr.  John  Poach,  of  Chester,  makes  his  offer. 
On  the  12th  of  December,  1874,  nine  days  after  the  above  offer  was 
made,  Mr.  Hanscom  accepts  it  with  a  statement  that  when  the  exact 
dimensions  of  the  new  vessel  were  ascertained  a  further  and  more 
explicit  acceptance  will  be  made.  Think  of  contracting  to  build  a 
vessel,  estimated  to  cost  $'2,000,000,  before  her  dimensions  were  de- 
termined ? 

Compare  this  with  the  years  of  study  and  the  elaborate  computa- 
tions which  are  made  preparatory  to  building  an  iron-clad  in  Europe. 
Another  board  reported  the  hull  of  the  Puritan  at  load-water  line 
■would  displace  about  1,700  tons  less  than  the  weight  of  material  the 
contractor  and  this  Chief  of  Bureau  of  Construction  had  finally  de- 
cided to  put  on  it  and  in  it.  In  other  words,  the  Puritan  would  be 
another  of  the  "  totally  submerged"  class  of  monitors  designed  byjthe 
Bureaus  of  Steam-Engineering  and  Construction  and  their  assistants. 
In  every  case  the  weights  to  be  carried  have  been  reduced  by  the 
boards  appointed  to  investigate. 

To  overcome  the  difficulty  compound  armor  instead  of  laminated 
has  been  proposed,  coal  capacity  and  engine  power  have  been  re- 
duced, and  various  other  devices  proposed  that  would  enable  these 
vessels  to  float  with  the  loads  they  must  carry,  in  order  to  be  worthy 
the  name  of  iron-clad. 

Just  how  much  dependence  can  be  placed  on  the  assertions  of  the 
contractors  who  are  here  from  time  to  time  in  person,  and  are  always 
represented  by  others  in  and  out  of  office  when  this  question  is  being 
discussed,  I  will  now  demonstrate  to  the  House. 

On  page  4  of  their  statement  in  relation  to  the  unfinished  monitors 
Mr.  Poach  makes  the  following  assertion:  "  In  order  to  show  vou 
the  caution  and  care  taken  in  the  designing  of  these  vessels  and  their 
fitness  for  the  use  intended  for  them,  I  will  give  you  some  little  in- 
formation." The  "  caution  and  care  taken  mthe  designing  of  these 
vessels"  is  aptly  illustrated  in  the  report  of  what  is  known  as  the 
"Mullany  board,"  convened  in  June,  1877,  two  years  and  six  months 
after  the  Puritan  had  been  began.  It  is  there  recorded  that  it  was 
necessary  for  the  board  to  prepare  plans  from  which  to  compute  her 
displacement.  There  did  not  exist  up  to  that  time,  three  years  after 
she  was  contracted  for,  a  plan  from  which  her  displacement  could  be 
computed. 

I  will  now  read  the  conclusions  of  another  board  in  relation  to 
the  Puritan: 

First.  Neither  plans  nor  specifications  were  drawn  for  the  construction  of  the 


14 


now  Puritan,  nor  were  any  measures  adopted  to  ascertain  whether,  when  huilt, 
she  would  sink  or  swim.  "The  failure  or  success  of  a  first-class  national  iron-clad 
was  thus  put  to  the  hazard  of  mere  chance. 

Second.  This  vessel,  as  far  as  constructed,  and  if  finished  as  contemplated,  is  a 
total  failure,  nor  can  any  changes  now  practicable  make  her  efficient — meaning 
hy  that  term  equality  with  foreign  iron-clads  of  the  same  size  and  type. 

The  Committee  of  Naval  Affairs  has  been  told  by  the  present  Sec- 
retary of  tbe  Navy,  •who  quotes  from  one  of  bis  predecessors,  that 
"the  unanimity  of  opinion  in  reference  to  each  of  tbese  vessels 
would  seem  to  leave  no  room  of  doubt,"  &c.  Reading  over  all  tbat 
bas  been  reported  by  tbe  several  boards  and  experts  wbo  bave  ex- 
amined tbese  vessels,  tbere  appears  to  be  any  thing  but  "unanimity 
of  opinion  w  except  as  to  one  point,  which  is  tbat  tbey  cannot  under 
any  circumstances  be  completed  as  originally  contemplated,  and 
tbat  tbey  cannot  under  any  circumstances  be  made  efficient  iron-clad 
vessels  compared  witbtbose  tbat  bave  been  recently  built  or  are  now 
under  construction  in  tbe  same  state  as  tbese  unfinisbed  monitors  are. 
Tbere  is  not  even  "  unanimity  of  opinion"  as  to  the  necessity  of 
iron-clads  of  their  class  at  all.  When  we  review  the  origin  and  prog- 
ress, and  compare  the  cost  of  iron-clads,  and  examine  closely  into 
their  achievements,  we  find  that  tbe  few  naval  officers  who  lead  in 
the  already  rapid  reaction  toward  unarmored  vessels  for  fighting 
have  reasons  and  facts  undisputed  and  indisputable  as  the  founda- 
tion of  their  objection. 

THE  PURITAN  AND  THE  DEVASTATION. 

As  a  further  illustration  of  the  attempt  that  has  been  made  to 
throw  dust  in  the  eyes  of  Congress  in  relation  to  the  comparative 
merits  of  these  vessels,  we  find  Mr.  Roach  recklessly  declaring  that 
the  British  iron-clad  Devastation  "  could  not  enter  the  ports  of  New 
York,  Philadelphia,  and  Baltimore,  or  any  of  the  other  ports  "  ex- 
cept Portland,  Boston,  and  New  London,  owing  to  her  great  draught, 
and  that  "she  could  not  carry  coal  enough  for  the  purpose  of  cross- 
ing the  ocean."  He  then  proceeds  to  "  compare  the  cost  of  the  Puri- 
tan with  that  of  similar  ships  on  the  other  side  of  tbe  water,"  and 
gives  the  cost  of  the  Inflexible,  Devastation,  Ajax,  and  other  British 
vessels. 

The  Devastation  was  designed  in  1869,  before  the  compound  engine 
had  been  adopted ;  completed  in  1873,  and  has  had  seven  years  of  serv- 
ice. The  Puritan  was  not  designed  at  all,  but  commenced  in  1874,  five 
yeans  after  the  Devastation  was  designed,  and  one  year  after  she  was 
completed,  and  the  Puritan  is  still  on  stocks  in  embryo — not  even  an 
egg — a  shell  merely,  to  which  all  the  vast  improvements  in  ma- 
chinery, armor,  and  armament  that  have  been  made  during  the  last 
ten  years  may  be  applied  with  the  result  of  increasing  the  resisting 
power  of  her  armor  and  penetrating  power  of  her  guns  as  much  as 
20  per  cent.,  and  the  economy  of  her  engines  as  much  as  60  per  cent. 

Why  should  we  compare  the  Puritan  with  the  Devastation,  the  fu- 
ture witb  tbe  past !  The  only  reason  for  such  a  comparison  would 
be  to  throw  dust  in  the  eyes  of  Congress,  while  we  hurrah  for  the  old 
flag  and  secure  a  big  appropriation.  Mr.  Roach's  assertions  that 
the  Devastation  u  eouldnotenterNew  York, Philadelphia,  Baltimore, 
or  any  of  the  other  ports,  except  Boston,  Portland,  and  New  London 
at  high  tide,"  and  that  "  she  could  not  carry  coal  enough  for  the  pur- 
pose of  crossing  the  ocean"  are  unqualifiedly  false. 

From  the  official  report  of  Chief  Engineer  King,  entitled  "Euro- 
pean ships  of  war,  1877,"  on  pp.  37-45,  you  will  find  a  complete  de- 
scription of  this  vessel;  from  which  it  appears  that  the  Devastation 
carries  ordinarily  in  her  regular  bunkers  1,350  tons  of  coal,  and 


15 


extraordinarily  in  various  places  available  for  the  purpose  250  tons 
more.  Steaming  at  the  rate  often  knots  per  hour,  she  can  with  1,600 
tons  of  coal,  her  maximum  capacity,  complete  a  distance  of  5,572 
knots,  or  nearly  double  the  distance  from  New  York  to  Queenstown, 
and  nearly  double  that  from  Plymouth  to  Halifax,  two  British  sta- 
tions, one  on  each  side  of  the  Atlantic. 

Steaming  at  her  maximum  sea-speed  of  twelve  knots  per  hour,  she 
could  go  from  Plymouth  to  New  York  in  ten  days,  and  have  coal 
enough  left  for  an  attack.  The  Devastation  can  keep  the  sea  for 
twenty-three  days,  steaming  at  the  rate  of  ten  knots  an  hour,  and 
yet  Mr.  Roach  goes  before  a  committee  of  this  House  and  deliberately 
states  that  "she  could  not  carry  coal  enough  for  the  purpose  of 
crossing  the  ocean." 

The  Devastation's  maximum  draught  of  water  is  officially  reported 
by  the  same  authority  as  27  feet  and  1  inch.  She  would  at  this  draught 
displace  9,298  tons,  having  on  board  1,350  tons  of  coal.  Having 
crossed  the  Atlantic  at  the  rate  of  ten  knots  per  hour,  and  consumed 
two-thirds  of  her  coal,  (900  tons,)  her  maximum  draught  would  then 
be  less  than  26  feet.  This  depth  of  water  is  carried  in  and  out  of  the 
port  of  New  York  on  an  average  of  twice  a  month  by  regular  trans- 
atlantic steamers. 

THE  MIAXTOXOMOH. 

The  ignorance  displayed  by  Mr.  Roach  in  his  statement  is  the  only 
excuse  for  his  assertions.  The  qualities  he  ascribes  to  the  ideal  Puri- 
tan and  other  vessels  that  he  is  buildin g  exist  only  in  his  own  imagina- 
tion. It  is  impossible  to  compare  a  vessel  that  has  never  been  designed, 
although  partly  built,  with  others  that  have  been  designed  and 
built.  Until  some  definite  plans  are  formed  for  the  Puritan,  Terror, 
Amphitrite,  and  Monadnock,  discussing  their  comparative  qualities 
would  be  profitless.  But  the  Miantonomoh  has  advanced  to  a  stage 
that  permits  a  comparison  between  her  and  "  similar"  vessels  cited 
by  Mr.  Roach,  the  Ajax  and  Agamemnon  among  them.  A  compari- 
son with  these  vessels  would  not  have  been  made  had  it  not  been 
provoked.  Their  draught  is  such  that  they  may  enter  every  one  of  our 
important  ports.  They  were  very  carefully  designed  about  the  same 
time  the  new  Puritan  was  ordered  to  be  built  by  the  chief  construc- 
tor of  our  Navy  before  he  had  quite  decided  on  her  dimensions. 
Their  keels  were  laid  in  1676 ;  they  were  launched  in  1879,  and  are 
now  much  nearer  completion  that  the  Miantonomoh. 

The  hull  of  this  vessel  is  protected  with  a  belt  of  solid  iron  armor 
7  inches  thick  amidships,  5  inches  and  3  inches  at  the  ends,  backed 
by  wood  varying  in  thickness  from  20  inches  to  24  inches.  The 
Ajax  and  the  Agamemnon  have  an  armor  belt  around  them  com- 
posed of  two  thicknesses  of  iron,  one  10  inches,  the  other  8,  and  two 
thicknesses  of  wood,  one  10  inches,  the  other  9,  or  18  inches  of  iron 
and  19  inches  of  wood.  The  comparative  resistance  of  these  two 
belts  of  armor  may  safely  be  stated  as  3  to  1  in  favor  of  the  Ajax 
and  Agamemnon.  The  turrets  of  the  Miantonomoh  are  not  vet  defi- 
nitely  designed ;  they  cannot  exceed  10  inches  in  thickness  of  com- 
pound armor,  for  she  could  not  carry  thicker  in  additiou  to  the 
other  weights  still  to  be  placed  on  board.  The  thickness  of  solid 
armor  of  the  English  turret  is  16  inches,  composed  of  lOf  inches  of 
iron  faced  with  5^  inches  of  steel  and  termed  compound  armor. 

The  resistance  of  the  turrets  of  the  Ajax  and  Agamemnon  will  be 
nearly  double  that  of  the  Miantonomoh.  Guns  will  project  from 
the  turrets. 

The  guns  of  the  Miantonomoh  are  not  yet  built.    Those  designed 


16 

for  her,  the  heaviest  she  can  carry,  are  four  10-incli  breech-loading 
rifles,  weighing  about  20  tons,  that  will  throw  a  broadside  of  1,600 
pounds  with  a  power  capable  of  penetrating  about  15  inches  of  iron 
armor  at  1,000  yards.  These  guns  ;ire  purely  ideal.  The  guns  of  the 
Ajax  are  12^  inches  in  diameter,  breech.-load.ing  rifles,  weighing  38 
tons  each  ;  they  will  throw  a  broadside  of  3,374  pounds  with  a  force 
■capable  of  penetrating  17$  inches  of  solid  iron  at  1,000  yards. 

Differently  expressed,  the  Miantonomoh's  guns  will  not  penetrate 
the  Ajax  armor  at  any  point,  while  the  Ajax's  guns  will  go  right 
through  the  Miantonomoh's  side  armor,  in  one  side  and  out  the  other, 
and  easily  penetrate  her  turret. 

The  Ajax  can  carry  700  tons,  or  six  days'  supply  of  coal,  to  steam 
at  the  rate  of  13  knots  per  hour.  The  Miantonomoh  carries  531  tons 
and  may  steam  at  the  rate  of  10  knots  per  hour.  At  full  speed  the 
Ajax  and  her  class  can  steam  about  500  miles  farther  than  the  Mian- 
tonomoh. At  10  knots  per  hour,  the  Ajax  could  steam  almost  twice 
.across  the  Atlantic,  while  the  Miantonomoh  only  half  way  across. 

It  was  evidently  impolitic  for  Mr.  Roach  to  provoke  a  comparison 
between  the  two  vessels  as  to  qualities.  As  to  cost,  the  estimated 
cost  of  the  two  vessels  is  about  eq  ual  if  we  take  account  of  material 
delivered  to  Mr.  Roach  in  part  payment  for  his  work,  and  admit  that 
the  estimates  for  completing  the  Miantonomoh  are  correct.  But  the 
cost  per  ton  displacement  of  the  Miantonomoh  will  be  at  least  double 
that  of  the  Ajax,  in  spite  of  her  vast  inferiority  in  every  particular. 

I  will  now  quote  Chief  Engineer  King  on  the  comparative  qualities 
of  the  Miantonomoh  and  other  vessels  that  she  could  not  decline  to 
fight : 

t 

The  offensive  and  defensive  powers  of  this  vessel  (the  Miantonomoh)  can  per- 
"haps  be  best  shown  by  comparison  with  the  British  and  French  coast  defenders. 
This  may  readily  be  made  by  reference  to  the  descriptions  and  dimensions  pre- 
viously given  of  the  British  vessels  Glatton,  built  upward  of  ten  years  ago,  and 
Conqueror,  now  building,  and  the  French  coast  defenders  Tonnerre  put  afloat  in 
1878,  and  others. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  Glatton  has  the  same  speed,  but  that  her  armor  is  12 
inches  thick  above  water  and  10  inches  below  water,  while  that  of  the  Miantono- 
moh is  but  7  inches  maximum  with  reductions  at  the  ends  and  below  water.  As 
the  armament  of  either  ship  may  be  changed  to  suit  the  times  no  comparison  in 
this  respect  can  be  made  at  present.  The  Glatton  carries  her  guns  6  feet  higher 
above  water  than  those  of  the  Miantonomoh.  She  has,  however,  A\  feet  greater 
draught  of  water. 

The  Conqueror,  which  is  much  more  powerful,  may  be  regarded  as  a  sea-go- 
ing vessel,  her  upper  decks  being  9  feet  6  inches  above  the  load  water  line,  with 
comfortable  quarters  aft  above  this  deck,  while  her  240-ton  breech-loaders  will  be 
mounted  so  high  above  water  as  to  be  capable  of  being  worked  at  sea  in  any  weather. 
Her  armor,  winch  is  compound  (iron  faced  with  steel)  is  12  inches  thick  on  the 
water-line  and  on  the  turret,  and  her  indicated  horse-power  of  4,500  will  give  an 
estimated  speed  of  thirteen  knots  an  hour. 

The  Tonnerre,  like  the  Glattou,  is  a  breastwork  monitor,  carrying  one  turret, 
in  which  at  present  are  mounted  two  12|-inch  breech-loading  rifles  ;  her  speed  is 
recorded  at  fourteen  knots,  and  her  armor  is  13  inches  thick  on  the  water-line  and  14 
inches  on  the  turret.  Her  guns  being  mounted  high  above  water,  she  also  is  cap- 
able of  going  to  distant  seas,  and  may  be  regarded  as  a  powerful  vessel. 

The  advantages  possessed  by  the  Miantonomoh  over  the  last  two  named  vessels 
are  lighter  draught  and  a  greater  number  of  guns.  The  disadvantages  are  an 
armor  too  thin  for  protection  against  heavy  modern  projectiles. 

Mr.  King  failed  to  add  other  conspicuous  disadvantages  of  the 
Miantonomoh,  such  as  lower  speed,  vastly  inferior  sea-going  quali- 
ties, cramped  quarters,  small  coal  capacity,  and  inferior  power  of 
armament. 

Let  gentlemen  who  are  in  doubt  as  to  whether  we  shall  appropri- 
ate money  for  completing  these  vessels  read  a  report  of  the  veteran 
distinguished  chief  constructor,  Lenthall,  dated  April  27,  1880,  in 


17 


Executive  Document  82,  Forty-sixth  Congress,  second  session,  and 
remark  the  u  unanimity  of  opinion  "  alleged  by  our  new  Secretary  in 
favor  of  completing  this  vessel.  And  I  warn  Congress  of  the  inev- 
itable consequences  of  recognizing  by  any  law  direct  or  indirect  the 
existence  of  these  unfinished  monitors.  Just  as  sure  as  such  recog- 
nition is  made  the  Government  will  be  called  on  to  pay  an  infinite 
variety  of  charges  for  work  on  these  vessels  and  space  occupied 
by  them.  This  is  already  intimated  in  the  statements  of  the  con- 
tractors, who  now  have  no  standing  whatever  in  the  matter  and 
must  seek  redress  from  those  who  illegally  contracted  with  them. 

The  CHAIRMAN.    The  time  of  the  gentleman  has  expired. 

Mr.  ATKINS.  I  desire  to  move  to  extend  the  time  of  the  gentle- 
man from  New  York,  and  the  gentleman  from  New  Jersey  can  also 
have  his  time  extended. 

The  CHAIRMAN.    That  cannot  be  done  in  committee. 

Mr.  HEWITT,  of  New  York.  If  the  gentleman  will  allow  me  a 
moment,  I  desire  to  say  that  I  have  reached  now  a  point  in  my  re- 
marks where  the  remainder  has  been  reduced  to  writing,  and  even 
if  the  committee  gave  me  permission  to  continue  I  should  not  feel 
able  to  do  so  to-day.  I  will  therefore  simply  ask  leave  to  print  the 
remainder  of  this  work,  and  thank  the  committee  for  its  attention. 

There  was  no  objection. 

THE  ROBESON  NAVY. 

The  gentleman  from  New  Jersey,  in  charge  of  this  bill,  [Mr.  Robe- 
son,] said,  during  the  debate  on  the  deficiency  appropriation  bill, 
(Congressional  Record,  June  8,  page  36:) 

Thank  God,  every  ship  that  now  bears  the  flag  of  America  and  carries  its  guns 
was  built  by  me  or  was  substantially  repaired  under  my  direction,  and  I  am  respon- 
sible for  it. 

Subsequently  Mr.  Blount  made  the  following  statement : 

As  to  the  vessels  used  in  that  connection,  [putting  down  the  rebellion  which  was 
rife  in  the  southern  part  of  this  country — Robeson.]  Congress  passed  laws  provid- 
ing for  their  sale.  They  ought  to  have  been  sold  ;  but  objection  was  made,  and 
the  gentleman  in  spite  of  an  universal  sentiment  that  they  were  worthless,  went 
to  enormous  expense  in  repairing  those  vessels  ;  and  everybody  admits  that  they 
are  worthless  at  this  hour. — Congressional  Record,  June  8.  page  36. 

To  which  Mr.  Robeson  replied,  (Congressional  Record,  June  8, 
page  36:) 

So  far  is  the  gentleman's  statement  from  being  accurate  when  he  says  that  every- 
body agrees  that  the  ships  I  undertook  to  provide  for  the  defense  of  this  country 
were  good  for  nothing,  I  affirm  that  every  respectable  authority  from  that  time 
to  this  has  pronounced  them  the  best  of  the  kind  that  could  have  been  provided. 

Thus  it  appears  that  the  gentleman  from  New  Jersey  accepts  the 
responsibility  for  the  vessels  "built,'7  "substantially  repaired,"  and 
"  rebuilt"  during  his  administration  of  the  Navy  Department.  The 
expression  "undertook  to  provide"  covers  all  cases. 

I  expressed  my  own  opinions  as  follows  during  that  debate : 

I  believe  he  [Mr.  Robeson]  was  the  victim,  if  victim  he  was,  of  the  bureaus  of 
the  Navy  Department,  which  recklessly  squandered  these  vast  amounts  of  money, 
and  if  any  more  money  is  to  be  put  into  the  custody  of  those  bureaus  it  will  fol- 
low the  money  which  heretofore  has  been  put  into  their  hands  and  thrown  away, 
and  result  in  a  worthless  Navj-,  as  it  is  declared  to  be  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy 
and  by  the  Naval  Committee. — Congressional  Record,  June  8,  page  37. 

My  purpose  now  is  to  substantiate  these  assertions  by  submitting 
facts  and  comparisons  that  cannot  be  disputed,  and  which  so  far  as 
possible  are  derived  from  the  answers  to  the  resolution  of  inquiry 
which  I  offered  in  January  last,  and  which  is  numbered  Executive 
Document  No.  30,  Forty-seventh  Congress,  first  session.  Forconven- 
4  HE 


18 


ience  of  treatment  I  will  divide  the  vessels  that  Mr.  Robeson  "  un- 
dertook to  provide  for  the  defense  of  this  country"  into  four  groups. 
Group  1  will  comprise  seven  of  the  eight  vessels  authorized  to  be 
built  by  "act  of  February  10,  1873;"  the  Huron  having  been  lost, 
no  information  was  furnished  about  her.  Group  2  will  comprise  the 
unarmored  vessels  that  were  "  substantially "  repaired.  Group  3 
will  comprise  all  the  iron-clad  vessels  that  were  "substantially  re- 
paired ;  "  group  4,  those  that  he  ordered  to  be  rebuilt. 

The  vessels  comprised  in  group  1  are  the  Adams,  Alert,  Alliance, 
Enterprise,  Essex,  Ranger,  and  Trenton.  The  first  six  of  these  are 
in  active  service  in  commission.  The  Trenton  is  laid  up  in  the  Brook- 
lyn navy-yard.  We  will  consider  this  vessel  separately,  owing  to 
the  persistent  manner  in  which  she  is  cited  on  all  available  occasions 
by  naval  constructors  and  engineers  as  a  sample  of  what  they  can 
accomplish  in  marine  architecture  and  engineering.  The  act  of  Con- 
gress authorizing  the  construction  of  these  vessels  reads  as  follows : 

That  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  be  authorized  to  construct  eight  steam-vessels 
of  war,  with  auxiliary  sail-power,  and  of  such  class  or  classes  as  in  his  judgment 
will  best  subserve  the  demands  of  the  service,  each  carrying  six  or  more  guns  of 
large  caliber ;  the  hulls  to  be  built  of  iron  or  wood,  as  the  Secretary  may  deter- 
mine: Provided,  That  the  aggregate  tonnage  of  the  whole  number  shall  not  exceed 
8.000  tons,  and  that  the  cost  of  building  the  same  shall  not  exceed  $3,200,000 :  And 
provided,  That  four  of  said  vessels  shall  be  built,  in  whole  or  in  part,  in  private 
yards,  upon  contract  with  the  lowest  responsible  bidder  therefor,  upon  pubbc 
competition  and  proposals,  due  notice  thereof  being  given  by  advertisement,  upon 
models,  specifications,  and  drawings,  furnished  by  the  Navy  Department  and  un- 
der its  direction  and  supervision,  if,  upon  full  examination  and  consideration,  the 
same  shall  be  deemed  practicable  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy :  or,  the  hulls  of 
any  portion  of  said  vessels  may  be  built  upon  private  contract  in  the  Government 
yards  upon  like  proposals,  models,  specifications,  drawings,  and  supervision,  and 
upon  like  examination  and  consideration,  the  Government  in  either  case  furnishing 
such  materials  as  may  be  deemed  practicable  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy. 

Sec.  2.  That  neither  of  said  vessels  shall  be  commenced  until  full  and  complete 
models,  specifications,  and  drawings  shall  be  made  for  its  construction  in  all  its 
parts.  And  after  such  models  and  drawings  are  approved  by  the  proper  authority, 
they  shall  not  be  changed  in  any  respect  when  the  cost  will  exceed  $100,000,  except 
upon  the  recommendation  of  a  board  of  survey  composed  of  not  less  than  five  offi- 
cers of  the  Navy,  and  approved  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  ;  and  if  changes  are 
thus  made,  the  actual  cost  of,  and  damage  caused  by,  such  changes  shall  be  esti- 
mated by  such  board  of  survey ;  and  the  terms  of  the  contract  shall  provide  that 
the  contractors  shall  be  bound  by  the  estimate  of  said  board  as  to  the  amount  of 
increased  or  diminished  compensation  they  are  to  receive,  if  any,  in  consequence 
of  any  such  changes. 

With  such  a  large  discretion,  and  with  the  certainty  that  Congress 
would  make  additional  appropriations  to  complete  the  vessels  if  the 
$3,200,000  granted  in  the  act  was  found  insufficient,  the  country  had 
a  right  to  expect  "eight  steam  vessels  of  war"  of  which  it  would 
not  be  ashamed  and  on  which  it  could  rely  to  some  extent  for  national 
defense.  In  anticipation  of  the  objection  that  may  be  raised  to  an 
assumption  that  Congress  would  appropriate  more  money,  I  will 
here  state  that  the  expenditure  on  hulls  and  motive  power  (which 
includes  spars,  sails,  and  machinery)  of  the  "eight  steam  vessels  of 
war"  aggregated  more  than  $4,810,000  in  money,  according  to  various 
official  statements  of  the  Department  that  have  been  put  together, 
besides  an  unknown  quantity  of  machinery  and  materials  consumed 
and  transformed  in  their  construction,  and  for  their  equipment  and 
outfit. 

With  the  vast  stores  of  timber,  machinery,  iron,  and  other  mate- 
rials, and  with  a  costly  plant  in  the  various  navy-yards  lyng  idle 
and  available  for  all  the  operations  involved  in  the  construction  of 
"  eight  steam  vessels  of  war,"  the  $3,200,000  appropriated  specifically 
for  their  construction  would  have  been  ample  to  create  the  finest  vea- 


19 


sels  that  have  ever  borne  our  flag.  Now  let  us  critically  examine 
and  compare  the  cost  and  qualities  of  these  vessels,  and  from  this 
determine  whether  or  not  Congress  would  be  justified  in  making  any 
more  appropriations  to  be  spent  at  the  unlimited  discretion  of  the 
Secretary  and  his  irresponsible  chiefs  of  bureaus. 

The  first  six  vessels  of  this  group  displace  7,740  tons ;  the  expend- 
iture of  money  on  their  hulls  and  motive  power,  according  to  the  in- 
formation furnished,  aggregates  a  little  over  $3,000,000,  or  at  the  rate 
of  $387  per  ton  of  displacement,  which  is  the  most  convenient  and, 
indeed,  only  possible  standard  of  comparison  for  vessels  of  similar 
types.  If  we  include  the  cost  and  value  of  pieces  of  machinery  util- 
ized in  the  construction  of  their  engines,  and  of  materials  consumed 
in  the  construction  of  their  hulls,  spars,  rigging,  and  sails,  these  six 
"  steam  vessels  of  war"  will  be  found  to  have  cost  the  Government 
certainly  not  less  than  $5,000,000,  and  possibly  much  more,  which 
would  be  at  the  rate  of  $646  per  ton  displacement.  This  estimate  is 
based  on  proportionate  value  of  material  to  labor  in  construction  of 
vessels.  Comparing  the  actual  money  outlay,  $387  per  ton  displace- 
ment, with  the  cost  of  the  hull  and  motive  power  of  the  best  mer- 
chant steamers,  it  will  appear  that  the  money  expended  on  the  hulls 
and  motive  power  of  these  vessels  is  fully  four  times  the  cost  of  hulls 
and  motive  power  of  merchant  steamers. 

It  is  conceded  that  naval  vessels  must  be  stronger,  more  carefully 
built,  and  better  finished  ;  but  how  four  times  the  cost  of  similar 
vessels  in  the  merchant  service  could  have  been  spent  on  these  six 
steam  vessels  of  war  is  a  problem  that  needs  solution  by  those  who 
spent  it  before  Congress  would  be  justified  in  intrusting  to  them 
any  more  money.  As  to  the  durability  of  these  vessels  we  are  hap- 
pily in  a  position  to  judge  by  the  information  furnished  in  answer  to 
my  resolution.  In  spite  of  their  excessive  cost  these  six  vessels  have 
required  an  expenditure  of  more  than  $800,000  in  repairs  during  the 
six  years  of  their  service ;  and  what  is  still  more  startling,  we  find 
from  the  information  furnished  by  the  Bureau  of  Steam-Engineering 
that  four  of  these  vessels  need  new  boilers  that  will  cost  $400,000 
more  by  the  time  they  are  in  place  and  ready  for  service. 

What  better  illustration  could  be  given  of  the  inefficiency  of  the 
system  under  which  these  vessels  were  constructed  and  the  incom- 
petency of  the  men  that  designed  them  and  supervised  their  con- 
struction than  these  two  pertinent  facts :  Original  cost  at  least  four 
times  more  than  it  should  have  been ;  construction  so  inferior  as  to 
necessitate  an  outlay  of  26  per  cent,  (not  including  proposed  new 
boilers)  of  the  first  cost  in  repairs  during  first  six  years  of  service — 
a  period  during  which,  in  the  merchant  marine,  15  per  cent,  of  first 
cost  is  considered  adequate  for  deterioration  and.  repairs. 

We  come  now  to  the  question  of  efficiency ;  aDd  the  only  way  by 
which  we  may  arrive  at  the  degree  of  efficiency  of  these  u  six  steam 
vessels  of  war  "  is  to  compare  them  with  an  equal  amount  of  tonnage 
of  foreign  navy  built  about  the  same  time  and  of  a  similar  type.  This 
type  is  the  ocean  unarmored  cruiser,  which  in  time  of  war  may  be 
called  upon  to  blockade  any  enemy's  ports,  destroy  its  commercial 
vessels,  and  escape  from  or  fight  its  cruisers. 

It  must  be  evident  that  high  speed  is  the  first  essential  quality  of 
such  a  type ;  without  it  blockading  is  a  farce,  pursuit  of  an  unarmed 
vessel  vain,  and  escape  from  an  armed  one  impossible.  The  highest 
speed  that  can  possibly  be  obtained  by  either  of  these  six  vessels  is 
ten  and  three-quarter  knots  per  hour.  This  is  about  the  average 
speed  at  sea  under  ordinary  conditions  of  the  common  freight  steam- 


20 


ers  of  the  merchant  marine.  It  is  two  to  three  knots  less  than  the 
speed  of  the  same  classes  of  vessels  in  foreign  navies  built  about  the' 
same  time.  It  is  five  knots  less  than  the  average  speed  of  some  of  the 
transatlantic  steamers  built  about  the  time  these  vessels  were  de- 
signed. In  the  matter  of  speed,  therefore,  these  six  new  vessels  are 
failures.  Next  to  speed  comes  economy  in  the  consumption  of  fuel. 
The  importance  of  this  quality  in  an  American  vessel  of  war  may  be 
appreciated  by  remembering  that  we  have  no  coaling  stations  away 
from  our  home  ports  that  would  be  available  in  time  of  war. 

A  wide  discrepancy  exists  between  the  rates  of  consumption  of 
the  engines  of  these  vessels  given  in  the  statement  of  Bureau  of 
Steam-Engineering  (Executive  Document  No.  30,  part  3)  and  of  the 
same  bureau  in  the  appendix  to  the  report  of  the  honorable  Secre- 
tary of  the  Navy  for  1875,  (page  119.)  In  the  former,  the  consump- 
tion of  coal  per  indicated  horse-power  per  hour  of  the  Adams  is 
given  as  1.92  pounds ;  while  in  the  latter  it  is  given  as  2.25  pounds. 
A  difference  of  .33  pound  per  hour  in  the  consumption  of  fuel  means 
a  great  deal.  It  means  in  the  case  of  this  vessel  that  with  the  lower 
rate  of  consumption  she  could  steam  one-sixth  further  on  the  same 
amount  of  fuel  than  she  could  at  the  higher.  The  Eanger,  one  of 
the  six  vessels  of  group  1,  consumes  3.06  pounds  of  coal  per  indi- 
cated horse-power  per  hour.  We  find  on  page  125  of  the  same  re- 
port (Secretary  Navy's,  1875)  that  this  vessel's  engines  were  designed 
by  the  Bureau  of  Steam-Engineering,  and  built  at  Chester,  Penn- 
sylvania, presumably  by  Mr.  J.  Roach.  She  has  engines  identically 
the  same  as  the  Alert,  which  consumes  2.8  pounds  per  hour,  the  two 
vessels  being  identically  the  same,  displacement  and  model. 

It  appears  that  the  average  rate  of  consumption  of  coal  per  indi- 
cated horse-power  per  hour  of  these  six  new  " steam- vessels  of  war" 
is  2.65  pounds.  This  is  at  least  three-quarters  of  a  pound  per  hour 
in  excess  of  the  ordinary  compound  engines  built  at  the  time  their 
engines  were  built.  This  difference  put  in  another  way  is  equivalent 
to  stating  that  the  engines  built  at  the  same  time  for  merchant  ships 
of  the  United  States  and  for  foreign  vessels  of  war  and  merchant 
ships  of  the  same  power  are  nearly  one-third  more  efficient  and  eco- 
nomical than  those  designed  by  the  Bureau  of  Steam-Engineering,  and 
built  either  by  that  bureau  or  by  contract  under  its  supervision. 

Is  not  this  the  fullest  justification  for  my  conviction  that  the  en- 
gineers of  the  Navy  have  not  shown  themselves  to  be  as  capable  of 
designing  engines  as  they  are  in  spending  money  on  their  construc- 
tion ?  The  hulls,  as  well  as  the  motive  power  of  these  six  vessels, 
afford  food  for  reflection.  The  Bureau  of  Construction  reports  an  ex- 
penditure of  $225,400  in  repairs  on  their  hulls  in  the  first  five  years  of 
their  existence,  a  period  during  which  they  ought  not  to  have  co»t  a 
dollar  for  repairs.  It  is  hardly  worth  while  to  discuss  the  armament  of 
these  vessels  separately.  The  worthlessness  of  their  armaments  is 
conceded  even  by  the  Bureau  of  Ordnance  that  created  them.  We 
will  return  to  the  subject  of  our  naval  guns  and  the  appropriations 
for  the  Bureau  of  Ordnance  later  on. 

THE  TRENTON  AND  THE  BACCHANTE. 

We  come  now  to  the  Trenton,  the  pride  of  naval  constructors 
and  engineers,  and  described  by  some  of  our  naval  officers  as  the 
most  formidable  unarmored  vessel  afloat.  A  foreign  naval  officer 
once  described  the  Trenton  as  a  "formidable  looking  vessel."  At- 
tracted by  her  formidable  appearance  he  got  permission  to  examine 
her,  and  when  asked  by  one  of  his  brother  officers  on  his  return  to 


21 


his  vessel  what  he  had  seen,  he  answered  "  nothing."  Surprised 
that  such  an  opinion  should  be  expressed  by  an  intelligent  foreign 
officer  on  the  pride  of  our  Navy,  it  occurred  to  me  to  make  a  com- 
parison between  the  essential  features  of  the  Trenton  and  some  ves- 
sel of  the  same  size  built  at  the  same  time  for  a  foreign  navy.  The 
Trenton  displaces  3,900  tons,  the  Bacchante,  a  British  ship,  4,070 
tons ;  they  were  designed  and  completed  about  the  same  time,  and 
for  the  same  purpose.  The  object  in  view  was  an  unarmored  cruis- 
ing ram  of  good  speed  and  powerful  battery.  The  hull  of  the  Tren- 
ton is  built  of  wood  ;  that  of  the  Bacchante  is  iron,  specially  strength- 
ened to  resist  the  racking  of  high  speed,  sheathed  over  outside,  and 
covered  with  zinc  below  the  water-line  to  prevent  fouling. 

The  relative  strength  of  the  two  hulls  by  actual  computation,  re- 
garding them  as  girders  or  any  other  structures,  is  as  1  for  the  Tren- 
ton to  3  for  the  Bacchante.  Their  relative  durability  is  as  1  to  4^  in 
favor  of  the  Bacchante.  The  cost  of  the  Trenton  in  money  was 
$1,485,000,  and  in  material  on  hand  used  in  her  construction  about 
$900,000,  making  a  total  of  say  $2,385,000,  not  including  her  arma- 
ment and  outfit.  The  cost  of  the  Bacchante  was  $1,115^000,  not  in- 
cluding armament,  but  including  outfit.  The  relative  values  of  the 
materials  and  labor  in  the  two  vessels,  taking  into  account  prices  in 
the  two  countries,  is  as  1  for  the  Trenton  to  2£  for  the  Bacchante. 

The  motive  power  of  the  Trenton  cost  at  the  rate  $235,  that  of  the 
Bacchante  $69  per  maximum  indicated  horse-power.  The  engines 
of  the  Trenton,  costing  three  and  a  half  times  those  of  the  Bacchante, 
consume  at  the  rate  of  2.95  pounds  of  coal  per  indicated  horse-power 
per  hour  ;  those  of  tbe  Bacchante  1.93,  or  one-third  less.  The  maxi- 
mum speed  of  the  Trenton  is  12.83  knots  per  hour ;  that  of  theBacchante 
15.06  knots  per  hour.  Using  two-thirds  of  her  indicated  horse- 
power, the  Bacchante  steams  at  the  rate  of  three-quarters  of  a  knot 
faster  than  it  is  possible  for  the  Trenton  to  steam,  using  all  of  the 
power  that  can  be  got  out  of  her  engines.  With  one-third  of  her 
power  the  speed  of  the  Bacchante  is  within  a  knot  an  hour  of  the 
highest  possible  speed  of  the  Trenton  with  her  maximum  power. 
The  Bacchante  can  steam  at  the  rate  of  ten  knots  per  hour,  2,630 
knots.  The  Trenton  at  the  same  rate  only  1,300  knots,  or  less  than 
half  as  far,  due  partly  to  too  small  comparative  capacity  for  coal 
and  large  comparative  consumption. 

The  Trenton  throws  at  one  discharge  of  her  broadside  (six  guns) 
a  weight  of  1,074  pounds  of  metal  with  a  muzzle  velocity  of  1,450 
feet  per  second;  the  Bacchante  from  her  nine  rifles  in  broadside  1,053 
pounds  with  a  muzzle  velocity  of  1,525  feet  per  second,  and  from  her 
64-pounder  64  pounds  more  with  a  velocity  of  1,383  feet  per  second. 
The  vessels  are  about  evenly  matched  as  far  as  their  batteries  are 
concerned,  but  in  every  other  respect  the  Bacchante,  although  cost- 
ing far  less  than  the  cost  of  the  Trenton,  is  superior  and  more  useful 
and  more  durable  as  a  vessel  of  war.  On  page  303,  volume  2,  The 
British  Navy,  by  Sir  Thomas  Brassey,  there  is  this  statement  :  11  The 
second-class  cruisers  of  the  French  navy  have  a  conspicuous  advan- 
tage both  in  speed  and  coal  endurance  over  the  English  ships." 
What,  I  may  add,  must  be  the  measure  of  their  "  conspicuous  advan- 
tage "  over  the  Trenton. 

As  to  the  durability  of  the  Trenton  we  may  judge  by  the  fact  that 
$34,200  was  spent  in  repairing  her  hull  during  the  first  five  years  of 
her  life,  and  now  the  Bureau  of  Construction  reports  that  six  months 
and  $120,000,  and  the  Bureau  of  Steam-Engineering  three  months 
and  $150,000,  are  necessary  in  order  to  fit  her  for  service. 


22 


Mr.  Eobeson's  statement  that  every  respectable  authority  has 
pronounced  the  ships  he  undertook  to  provide  for  the  Navy  "  the  best 
of  the  kind  that  could  have  been  provided,"  so  far  as  the  eight  steam 
vessels  of  war  that  he  built  are  concerned,  has  thus  been  proven 
absolutely  groundless.  It  would  be  unreasonable  and  unjust  to  blame 
the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  alone  for  this  failure.  The  people  and 
their  Chief  Executive  do  not  expect  him  to  be  a  designing  marine 
engineer  and  shipbuilder. 

Congress  has  provided  the  men  for  these  duties.  The  chiefs  of 
Bureaus  of  Construction  and  Repair  and  of  Steam-Engineering  are 
responsible  under  our  present  system  for  the  designs  and  proper  con- 
struction of  naval  vessels.  They  cannot  shift  the  responsibility  on 
other  shoulders ;  it  belongs  to  them,  and  they  must  answer  for  the 
grossest  of  extravagance  and  the  worst  of  failures  in  the  design  and 
construction  of  these  vessels,  and  it  will  be  shown  subsequently  the 
failure  to  design  other  vessels  that  Mr.  Robeson  undertook  to  pro- 
vide. 

THE  UNARMORED  VESSELS. 

We  will  now  consider  group  2,  the  unarmored  vessels  of  war,  exclu- 
sive of  tugs,  &c,  " substantially  repaired"  during  Mr.  Robeson's 
administration.  No  one  has  ever  expected  a  Secretary  of  the  Navy 
to  know  enough  about  the  profession  of  which  he  is  the  nominal  head 
to  personally  decide  whether  or  not  a  vessel  shall  be  substantially 
repaired.  On  this  and  on  all  strictly  professional  matters  he  must 
necessarily  be  guided  by  the  advice  of  the  naval  experts  at  the  heads 
of  the  bureaus  of  his  Department ;  and  until  it  is  proven  otherwise 
it  is  but  fair  to  assume  that  Mr.  Robeson  was  advised  to  "  substan- 
tially repair  "  the  vessels  in  group  2. 

These  vessels  are  as  follows :  Alaska,  Ashuelot,  Benicia,  Brooklyn, 
Canandaigua,  Colorado,  Congress,  Franklin,  Hartford,  Iroquois,  Juni- 
ata, Kansas,  Kearsarge,  Lackawanna,  Lancaster,Minnesota,Mohican, 
Monocacy,  Monongahela,  Narragansett,  Omaha,  Ossipee,  Pensacola, 
Plymouth,  Powhatan,  Richmond,  Shawmut,  Shenandoah,  Tennes- 
see, Ticonderoga,  Tuscarora,  Wabash,  Wachusett,  Wyoming,  and 
Yantic.  The  u  substantial  repairs  "  executed  on  these  vessels  during 
Mr.  Robeson's  administration  of  the  Navy  cost  in  money  $20,219,645, 
besides  an  enormous  expenditure  of  material  on  hand,  of  which  it  is 
impossible  to  estimate  the  value.  The  money  expenditure  alone 
would  have  given  the  Navy  ten  of  the  most  efficient  armored 
vessels  that  could  have  been  devised  if  honestly  expended.  Even 
squandered  as  other  sums  were  it  would  have  given  the  Navy  thir- 
teen vessels  of  the  size,  class,  and  power  of  the  Trenton. 

It  will  not  do  to  plead  that  there  was  no  authority  of  law  for  such 
a  course,  for  the  authority  was  found  by  the  Secretary,  and  the  re- 
building of  the  following  named  steam- vessels,  or  commencing  to  re- 
build them,  took  place  during  his  administration  of  the  Navy  :  The 
Amphitrite,  Catskill,  Galena,  Marion,  Miantonomoh,  Monadnock, 
Nipsic,  Puritan,  Quinnebaug,  Swatara,  Tallapoosa,  Terror,  and  Van- 
dalia,  besides  sailing  vessels  that  we  know  nothing  about.  I  have 
searched  in  vain  for  the  authority  of  Congress  for  this  proceeding. 
But  it  may  have  been  good  policy,  and  the  Secretary  must  have 
believed  that  he  had  discretionary  power  in  the  matter.  Certainly 
if  he  had  discretion  as  to  whether  he  should  repair  or  rebuild  thirteen 
vessels  he  had  it  for  others,  and  so  accepting  his  construction  of  the 
law,  it  is  right  to  hold  him  to  the  responsibility  he  courts.  It  will 
save  time  and  I  hope  present  this  question  of  "  substantial  repairs  "' 
more  forcibly  if  we  separate  group  2  into  two  sections,  those  in  com- 


23 


mission  in  active  service,  and  those  that  are  either  laid  np  or  in  com- 
mission not  in  active  service.  The  first  comprises  the  Tennessee, 
Kearsarge,  Yantic,  Brooklyn,  Shenandoah,  Lancaster,  Pensacola, 
Lackawanna,  Wachusett,  Richmond,  Iroquois,  Ashuelot,  and  Monoc- 
acy. 

The  first  vessel  on  this  list  is  the  now  famous  Tennessee.  The  cost 
of  substantial  repairs  to  her  hull  and  motive  power  during  Mr.  Robe- 
son's administration  was  $1,434,503  in  money.  In  addition  to  this 
sum  Mr.  Roach,  the  contractor,  for  executing  the  repairs  to  her  en- 
gines received  her  first  engines,  then  as  good  as  new,  that  had  cost 
the  Government  $764,515.  The  Tennessee  displaces  4,840  tons.  Es- 
timating the  value  of  her  first  engines  at  $250,000,  (which  is  below  the 
ratio  of  values  allowed  in  this  country  for  simple  engines  when  they 
are  turned  over  to  engine-builders  for  conversion  into  compound,) 
we  may  regard  the  cost  of  substantially  repairing  the  hull  and  mo- 
tive power  of  the  Tennessee  per  ton  displacement  as  about  $350.  At 
such  a  price  we  may  reasonably  expect  that  the  hull  and.  motive 
power  of  the  Tennessee  will  require  no  additional  repairs  for  a  long 
time.  But  an  examination  of  the  information  furnished  will  show 
that  repairs  to  the  hull  and  motive  power  of  this  vessel  by  the  Gov- 
ernment since  she  was  delivered  up  by  Mr.  Roach  amounts  to  $306,000. 

As  her  boilers  were  built  in  1871,  they  must  now  need  renewal. 
Her  hull  is  rapidly  decaying,  as  it  is  of  wood.  Her  machinery  is  of 
very  inferior  type,  proven  by  the  fact  that  the  maximum  speed  of 
this  costly  vessel  is  ten  knots ;  and  that  she  consumes  2.95  pounds 
of  coal  per  indicated  horse-power  per  hour,  which  is  over  a  pound 
more  per  horse  per  hour  than  common  compound  engines  built  at  the 
same  time.  The  model  of  this  vessel  is  famous  for  its  perfection. 
Her  lack  of  speed  must  be  blamed  to  her  new  engines,  which  cost 
about  $450,000  in  money  and  material,  and  have  in  three  years 
required  repairs  amounting  to  $126,606  more.  These  engines  built 
by  Mr.  Roach  cost  in  money  $264,  and  in  money  and  material  $438 
per  indicated  horse-power.  Mr.  Roach  testified  before  the  Com- 
mittee of  Naval  Affairs  on  May  8,  1876,  in  regard  to  those  engines, 
as  follows : 

I  found  that  there  was  a  disposition  to  go  to  Europe  to  purchase  the  engines, 
and  I  made  a  proposal  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  to  guarantee  to  huild  the  en- 
gines of  the  Tennessee  as  good  as  he  could  get  abroad,  if  not  better,  for  the  same 
price.  I  made  the  proposition  and  gave  the  guarantee.  I  lost  $15,000,  and  the 
Government  has  the  advantage  of  all  the  experiments  with  the  compound  engine, 
which  were  so  costly. 

It  is  perfectly  legitimate,  therefore,  to  compare  the  cost  and  per- 
formance of  these  and  the  amount  paid  Mr.  Roach  for  them  with  the 
cost  and  performance  of  compound  engines  built  in  England  at  the 
same  time  for  the  British  navy  by  contract. 

We  find  that  the  cost  per  indicated  horse  per  hour  of  engines  of 
equal  power  with  boilers  built  at  the  same  time  by  contract  in  Eng- 
land, and  completely  fitted  in  place  for  service,  averages  $65,  one- 
fourth  what  was  paid  to  Mr.  Roach  in  money,  and  more  than  six 
times  the  equivalent  in  money  and  material  he  actually  received  for 
the  Tennessee's  engines.  In  no  case  does  the  English  engine  con- 
sume more  than  2  pounds  per  indicated  horse  per  iJ&ur,  or  about  two- 
thirds  the  consumption  of  the  Tennessee.  How  much  wiser  it  would 
have  been  for  the  Government  to  have  saved  Mr.  Roach  his  $15,000, 
while  saving  itself  about  $300,000  and  securing  a  better  article. 
The  worst  feature  of  the  Tennessee's  engines  remains  to  be  told :  In 
spite  of  their  excessive  cost  and  inferior  quality,  they  weigh  more 
and  occupy  more  space  in  the  vessel  than  their  power  justifies. 


24 


An  exact  comparison  between  the  space  occupied  by  the  Tennes- 
see's motive  power  (engines,  boilers,  and  coal)  and  that  of  equal- 
powered  vessels  in  foreign  navies  is  not  possible  until  data  sent  for 
is  received.  But  a  fair  estimate  shows  that  the  Tennessee's  engines 
weigh  about  one-half  more  per  developed  horse-power  than  they 
ought  to  weigh,  and  that  the  space  occupied  by  her  motive  power  is 
about  double  what  the  speed  of  the  vessel  justifies.  The  importance 
of  this  comparison  will  be  apparent  when  we  again  recall  the  fact 
that  we  have  no  coaling  stations. 

As  to  the  advantages  derived  from  experiments  with  the  compound 
engine  which  Mr.  Roach  declared  the  Government  had  acquired  at 
his  expense,  some  of  his  admirers  und  defenders  should  point  them 
out.  To  the  ordinary  mind  the  Government  appears  to  have  paid 
for  the  experience  of  which  Mr.  Roach  secured  as  the  advantages, 
both  tangible  and  experimental. 

The  next  vessel  on  this  list  is  the  Kearsarge.  The  money  expended 
on  this  vessel  in  "  substantial  repairs  "  during  Mr.  Robeson's  admin- 
istration was  $667,000,  or  at  the  rate  of  $436  per  ton  of  displacement, 
and  more  than  double  her  first  cost.  This  takes  no  account  of  the 
old  material  on  hand  and  consumed  in  her  repairs.  Now,  it  must  be 
admitted  that  the  fame  of  this  vessel  j  ustifies  the  perpetuation  of  her 
name  as  long  as  we  have  a  Navy.  But  I  contend  that  the  money 
thrown  away  on  substantial  repairs  could  have  been,  and  should, 
have  been,  spent  in  rebuilding  the  vessel  of  such  a  type  and  power 
as  to  be  of  some  service  in  the  future,  and  be  less  liable  to  involve 
the  name  in  disgrace  in  the  event  of  war.  In  foreign  navies  the 
names  made  famous  by  victories  such  as  that  won  over  the  Alabama 
are  given  to  the  best  vessels  that  are  built.  Now,  as  to  the  efficiency 
of  the  Kearsarge  after  double  her  first  cost  was  spent  in  substan- 
tially repairing  her  during  Mr.  Robeson's  administration. 

To  begin  with,  we  find  that  so  unsubstantial  were  these  repairs 
that  there  has  been  spent  on  additional  repairs  $242,000  more  since 
Mr.  Robeson  left  the  Department.  Thus  we  find  that  $908,000  in 
money  alone  has  been  spent  in  repairing  the  hull  and  motive  power 
of  a  vessel  since  1868  that  cost  only  $246, 916  in  1861,  according  to  the 
information  given  on  page  10,  Executive  Document  30,  part  4.  As 
to  the  comparative  qualities  of  this  vessel:  Her  engines  are  the  old- 
fashioned  type ;  they  consume  4.27  pounds  of  coal  per  indicated  horse- 
power per  hour,  about  two  and  a  half  times  the  reported  consump- 
tion of  the  Adams,  one  of  the  eight  new  vessels  that  have  already 
been  discussed.  This  means  that  not  only  would  the  cost  of  new  en- 
gines for  the  Kearsarge  been  much  less  than  the  cost  of  repairing  the 
old  ones,  but  the  cost  of  operating  the  new  ones,  producing  the  same 
results,  would  have  been  one-third  that  of  operating  the  old  ones. 

It  appears  from  the  information  furnished  that  the  "  substantial 
repairs  "  to  the  Kearsarge's  old  engines  have  cost  more  in  money  alone 
than  the  whole  cost  of  new  compound  engines  of  equal  power,  of  the 
latest  type,  put  into  vessels  that  were  rebuilt  without  direct  authority 
of  law.  And  as  to  speed,  we  find  the  Kearsarge  inferior  in  this  re- 
spect to  the  slowest  freight-steamers,  and  having  considerably  less 
speed  than  the  new  vessels  of  our  own  service.  Could  there  be  a 
more  forcible  presentation  of  the  utter  inefficiency  of  the  bureau  sys- 
tem ?  It  is  a  strain  on  the  charitable  side  of  our  nature  to  refrain 
from  charging  criminal  incapacity  to  any  one  who  advised  or  di- 
rected that  this  vessel  should  be  repaired.  The  avoidance  of  such 
mistakes  in  future  can  only  be  secured  by  placing  the  control  of  the 
expenditure  in  a  properly  constituted  board  of  supervision. 


25 


The  story  of  the  Kearsarge  is  essentially  that  of  all  the  vessels  sub- 
stantially repaired.  It  is  by  no  means  the  worse  instance  that  can 
be  cited.  Let  us  take  another  vessel,  the  Pensacola.  There  was 
expended  in  money  alone  on  substantial  repairs  to  hull  and  motive 
power  of  this  vessel,  during  Mr.  Robeson's  administration  of  the 
Navy,  $1,238,800,  and  since  its  close  $316,800  more,  making  a  total 
expenditure  of  money  on  the  repairs  to  this  vessel  $1,555,600  during 
and  since  Mr.  Robeson  entered  the  Department  as  its  head.  Com- 
paring this  with  the  expenditures  on  the  Trenton  during  the  same 
period,  we  find  that  the  substantial  repairs  on  the  Pensacola  are 
$50,000  in  excess  of  the  amount  expended  in  building  the  Trenton  and 
repairing  her  during  her  five  years  of  service.  Now,  let  us  compare 
the  two  vessels :  The  Pensacola  displaces  3,000  tons ;  the  Trenton, 
3,900  tons. 

The  cost  per  ton  of  substantially  repairing  the  old  Pensacola  ex- 
ceeds that  of  building  and  keeping  in  repair  the  New  Trenton  $17 
per  ton.  The  Pensacola  has  a  speed  of  9  knots  per  hour,  and  con- 
sumes 3.494  pounds  of  coal  per  indicated  horse-power  per  hour,  (see 
report  1875,  page  119, )  and  3.56  by  the  return  to  my  resolution.  The 
Trenton  has  a  speed  of  12.83  knots  per  hour,  and  consumes  2. 04  pounds 
of  coal  per  indicated  horse-power  per  hour.  Put  this  comparison  in 
a  different  form,  and  it  will  read  that  the  Trenton  can  steam  more 
than  a  fourth  faster  than  the  Pensacola  on  60  per  cent,  of  the  coal 
expended.  In  action,  in  cruising,  in  peace,  and  in  war  the  superiority 
of  the  Trenton  is  overwhelming.  As  to  battery,  that  of  the  Trenton 
is  as  superior  to  that  of  the  Pensacola  as  this  is  to  the  batteries  used 
in  the  war  of  1812. 

In  an  action  between  the  Pensacola  and  the  Trenton  the  latter 
could  choose  her  distance  and  her  position  and  destroy  the  former 
while  remaining  out  of  range  of  her  guns.  And  yet  in  the  same 
period  the  expenditures  on  substantial  repairs  on  the  Pensacola  have 
exceeded  the  cost  of  building  the  Trenton  by  $50,000.  Whether  the 
responsibility  for  repairing  the  Pensacola  belongs  to  the  civilian  at 
the  head  of  the  Department  or  to  the  so-called  experts  who  were  at 
the  head  of  the  Bureaus  of  Engineering  and  Construction  and  Re- 
pairs, the  conclusion  is  irresistible  that  money  should  no  longer  be 
voted  for  new  work  until  this  utterly  faulty  system  of  administra- 
tion shall  have  been  changed. 

The  expenditure  in  money  for  substantial  repairs  to  the  other  ten 
of  the  thirteen  vessels  comprising  the  first  section  of  group  2,  during 
Mr.  Robeson's  administration,  compared  with  the  cost  of  rebuilding 
those  that  were  rebuilt  will  only  yield  the  same  result  and  intensify 
the  pressing  need  of  a  change  in  our  system  of  naval  administration. 
The  remainder  of  group  2,  comprising  twenty-one  unarmored  ves- 
sels that  were  " substantially  repaired"  during  Mr.  Robeson's  ad- 
ministration are  not  now  in  active  service,  but  afford  an  equally 
striking  illustration  of  the  absurdity  of  repairing  obsolete  types  in- 
stead of  pursuing  a  uniform  policy  of  entirely  rebuilding  after  con- 
demning obsolete  vessels.  The  Congress,  Canandaigua,  Narragan- 
sett,  Kansas,  Saco,  Shawmut,  and  Wyoming  are  reported  as  worth- 
less. There  was  spent  in  repairing  the  hulls  and  motive  powers  of 
the  three  first,  during  Mr.  Robeson's  administration,  $1,048,000.  It 
would  be  interesting  to  know  how  many  miles  these  vessels  have 
steamed  since  the  close  of  that  administration,  for  as  far  as  I  can 
ascertain  they  have  not  been  in  active  service  any  considerable  time, 
and  yet,  having  cost  in  repairs  over  one  million  of  dollars,  they  are 
now  universally  condemned  as  "  worthless"  or  "not  worth  repair- 
ing." 


26 


We  will  now  compare  the  cost  of  substantially  repairing  the  other 
four — Kansas,  Saco,  Shawmut,  and  Wyoming — during  Mr.  Robe- 
son's administration,  with  the  cost  of  building  an  equal  amount  of 
new  tonnage  during  the  same  period.  The  aggregate  displacement  of 
these  four  worthless  vessels  is  4,260  tons,  that  of  the  Adams,  Essex, 
Enterprise,  and  Ranger,  four  of  the  new  vessels  built  by  Mr.  Robe- 
son by  authority  of  Congress,  aggregates  4,415  tons.  The  cost  of 
repairs  to  hull  and  motive  power  of  the  four  worthless  vessels  du- 
ring Mr.  Robeson's  administration  was  $1,572,364 ;  that  of  building 
the  four  new  ones  $1,825,440.  From  this  it  appears  that  the  money 
spent  on  four  absolutely  worthless  vessels  would  have  built  three 
absolutely  new  ones,  even  at  the  extravagant  cost  of  the  new  ones. 

REPAIRING  AND  REBUILDING  COMPARED. 

If  the  comparison  is  made  with  vessels  that  were  rebuilt  the  same 
result  is  arrived  at.  It  is  difficult  to  understand  how  it  was  possi- 
ble for  sane  men  to  recommend  or  approve  the  repairing  of  vessels, 
that  must  have  been  known  to  be  worthless,  at  a  cost  almost  equal 
to  the  buiding  of  new  ones.  Until  we  can  fix  the  responsibility  for 
such  imbecility  where  it  belongs,  it  is  asking  too  much  to  expect 
Congress  to  allow  the  same  imbecility  to  have  the  disbursement  of 
the  naval  appropriation  in  future. 

Of  the  remaining  seventeen  vessels  of  this  group,  four  are  reported 
as  requiring  extensive  repairs  to  hulls  and  machinery  that  will  cost 
(estimated)  $1,300,000.  Yet  on  these  four  vessels  there  was  expended 
during  Mr.  Robeson's  administration  no  less  than  $2,788,500,  and  there 
has  been  expended  since  $460,900,  making  $3,249,400 ;  and  yet  before 
they  can  be  of  any  service  in  war  they  must  absorb  $1,300,000  more. 
My  judgment  is  that  Congress  should  prohibit  by  specific  enactment 
the  spending  of  another  dollar  on  these  vessels,  for  they  are  obsolete 
types,  discarded  by  all  other  nations  for  fighting  purposes,  and  will 
cost  more  to  refit  than  they  are  worth. 

Of  the  remaining  eleven  reported  as  in  good  condition  and  requir- 
ing repairs  that  are  estimated  to  cost  $2,660,000,  not  one  will  render 
the  service  adequate  to  this  expenditure.  They  are  also  of  obsolete 
types,  low  powered,  with  slow  and  old-fashioned  engines  that  con- 
sume from  two  to  three  times  the  coal  that  modern  engines  of  equal 
power  consume.  Let  us  take  the  Hartford  as  an  example :  She  is 
an  historic  ship,  her  name  should  be  perpetuated,  and  the  ship  that 
bears  it  should  be  worthy  of  it.  This  vessel  has  cost  in  repairs  to 
her  hull  and  motive  power  during  and  since  Mr.  Robeson's  admin- 
istration $1,187,179.  Her  engines  are  of  the  old  type,  and  will  con- 
sume double  the  amount  of  coal  per  indicated  horse-power  that  the 
Trenton's  engines  consume.  Her  speed  cannot  be  more  than  three- 
fourths  of  the  Trenton,  and  she  will  not  be  any  thing  like  as  effi- 
cient a  vessel,  and  yet  she  has  cost  for  repairs  to  hull  and  engines 
more  than  the  Trenton  cost  to  build.  We  will  dismiss  group  2  with- 
out further  comment.  It  does  not  contain  a  single  vessel  worthy  to 
bear  the  flag  of  the  United  States  in  battle. 

THE  IRON-CLADS. 

The  vessels  comprising  group  3,  (the  iron-clads,)the  Galena,  Marion, 
Nipsic,  Quinnebaug,  Swatara,  and  Vandalia,  were  rebuilt,  without 
authority  of  law,  as  I  understand  it,  during  the  administration  of  Mr. 
Robeson.  These  six  and  the  seven  new  vessels  built  by  authority  of 
law  comprise  the  only  vessels  of  our  Navy  that  can  be  considered  as 
available  for  the  formation  of  a  cruising  or  blockading  fleet  in  war. 
While  the  rebuilding  of  these  vessels  may  have  been  judicious,  I  want 


27 


to  point  out  their  enormous  comparative  cost  and  marked  compara- 
tive inferiority  to  foreign  vessels  of  the  same  class,  built  during  the 
same  time,  as  a  further  illustration  of  the  imperative  necessity  for 
creating  a  deliberative  body  that  will  have  control  of  the  expendi- 
tures on  naval  vessels,  and  shall  be  invested  with  the  power  of  re- 
vising or  setting  aside,  if  need  be,  the  ill-considered  plans  of  the 
Bureaus  of  Construction  and  Engineering. 

The  six  vessels  aggregate  10,875  tons  displacement,  and  have  cost 
for  hulls  and  motive  power  in  money  $4,386,908,  and  no  one  seems 
to  know  how  much  more  in  material.  This  is  at  the  rate  of  $403  in 
money  per  ton  of  displacement.  From  the  information  furnished  it 
appears  that  the  cost  of  repairs  to  these  vessels  since  they  were  built 
has  amounted  to  $475,448.  Two  of  them  now  require  new  boilers. 
This  proves  beyond  question  that  the  enormous  cost  of  these  vessels 
must  not  be  attributed  to  their  exceptional  strength  or  durability. 
Their  comparative  efficiency  is  arrived  at  by  briefly  considering 
their  speed,  consumption  of  coal,  and  battery.  The  fastest — the 
Quinnebaug — has  a  maximum  speed  of  12.9  knots  per  hour,  and  con- 
sumes 2.26  pounds  of  coal  per  indicated  horse-power  per  hour.  The 
slowest  has  a  maximum  speed  of  lOf  knots  and  a  consumption  of 
2.7  pounds  of  coal  per  indicated  horse-power  per  hour. 

From  the  official  documents  relating  to  the  French  navy  we  find 
that  vessels  of  this  class  built  at  the  same  time,  (1870-'74,)  such,  for 
instance,  as  the  Champlain  and  Du  Petit  Thouars,  have  a  maximum 
sea  speed  of  14.3  and  15.1  knots  per  hour,  consume  about  1.8  pounds 
of  coal  per  indicated  horse-power  per  hour,  and  carry  rifled  bat- 
teries vastly  superior  in  penetrating  power  and  range  to  the  guns 
on  our  vessels.  In  an  action  between  two  fleets  formed  of  equal 
tonnage  of  these  classes  of  vessels  the  French  fleet  by  the  virtue  of 
the  superiority  of  more  than  two  knots  per  hour  in  speed  and  in  the 
range  of  their  guns  could  take  up  a  position  beyond  the  range  of  our 
guns  and  proceed  with  due  deliberation  to  worry  our  vessel  to  de- 
struction or  surrender. 

The  brilliant  successes  of  our  insignificant  Navy  in  the  war  of  1812 
were  due  to  the  superiority  of  speed  and  guns  in  vessels  equal  in  ton- 
nage to  the  British  vessels  they  engaged.  Victory  in  the  future  as 
well  as  in  the  past  depends  upon  these  same  conditions. 

Group  4.  Vessels  ordered  to  be  rebuilt  comprise  what  are  now 
termed  on  the  latest  Navy  list  "  serviceable  iron-clads"  on  which  sub- 
stantial repairs  were,  indeed,  made  during  Mr.  Robeson's  adminis- 
tration. The  first  on  the  list  of  these  so-called  "  serviceable  iron- 
clads" has  the  suggestive  name  of  Ajax.  In  answer  to  my  resolution 
the  Navy  Department  reports  that  8246,703  has  been  expended  for  re- 
pairs on  this  vessel  since  1870  by  the  three  bureaus,  Steam-Engineer- 
ing, Equipment  and  Recruiting,  and  Construction  and  Repair.  We 
may  reasonably  expect,  therefore,  that  she  is  now  in  serviceable  con- 
dition, or  has  been  performing  an  exceptional  amount  of  service 
during  the  eleven  years  covered  by  this  expenditure. 

The  service  performed  by  her,  however,  consists  of  one  trip  from 
Philadelphia  to  Key  West  and  return,  and  her  total  steaming  does 
not  exceed  2,500  miles.  Just  how  serviceable  and  efficient  she  really 
is  may  be  determined  from  page  2  of  "statement  concerning  en- 
gines," &c,  furnished  by  the  Bureau  of  Steam-Engineering.  There 
it  is  recorded  that  her  boilers  u  are  not  worth  repairing,"  her  engines 
are  in  "fair  order."  and  that  her  hull  "can  be  repaired."  The  Bu- 
reau of  Construction  and  Repair  reports  that  she  has  cost  to  October 
1,  1881,  $780,842.76.  The  estimate  for  repairing  this  vessel  is  $120,000. 


28 


The  second  on  the  list  of  serviceable  iron-clad  vessels  is  the  Canon- 
icus.  From  the  same  sources  of  information  (page  2,  statement  con- 
cerning engines,  &c.)  we  learn  that  this  vessel  has  boilers  "  not 
worth  repairing,"  a  hull  that  "  can  be  repaired,"  and  engines  "in 
fair  order."  But  the  Bureau  of  Construction  and  Repair  reports  that 
she  u  requires  extensive  repairs."  From  information  furnished  by 
this  bureau  it  appears  that  this  vessel  has  cost  $868,495,  of  which 
$350,000  has  been  expended  for  repairs  since  1870,  and  she  has  per- 
formed no  service  beyond  her  single  voyage  to  the  Gulf  and  return, 
having  steamed  about  2,500  miles. 

A  significant  fact  in  connection  with  this  item  for  repairs  on  the 
Canonicus  is  the  expenditure  of  $65,475.26  by  the  Bureau  of  Equip- 
ment and  Recruiting  since  1870,  of  which  $63,100  was  spent  in  the 
seven  years  1871-78,  $40,000  of  the  latter  sum  being  spent  in  two 
years,  1874  and  1875.  How  such  a  sum  could  have  been  expended 
for  repairs  to  the  equipment  of  a  monitor  without  masts  or  sails, 
and  that  had  made  but  one  short  voyage,  it  would  be  impossible  to 
explain  without  examining  the  items. 

The  Ajax  and  Canonicus  are  fair  examples  of  the  cost,  the  condi- 
tion, and  the  service  that  has  been  rendered  by  these  thirteen  "  serv- 
iceable iron-clads"  since  1870. 

BRITISH  AND  AMERICAN  SHIPS  COMPARED. 

To  avoid  repetition  we  will  now  group  these  thirteen  vessels 
into  a  fleet  for  the  defense  of  any  port,  and  compare  them  as  such 
with  an  equal  amount  of  British  iron-clad  tonnage  designed  and  con- 
structed before  these  vessels  were  rebuilt.  The  aggregate  displace- 
ment of  the  thirteen  American  serviceable  iron-clads  is  23,510  tons ; 
their  aggregate  cost  has  been  $10,403,438.  These  sums  do  not  include 
the  cost  of  armament.  The  cost  of  these  vessels  has  been,  therefore, 
$442  per  ton  of  disx>lacement.  In  order  to  make  the  comparison 
with  scrupulous  fairness,  we  will  select  the  same  class  of  British 
iron-clads  ;  that  is,  turreted  iron-clads  for  coast  and  harbor  defense. 
The  Cyclops,  Gorgon,  Hecate,  Hydra,  Hotspur,  and  Rupert  were 
designed  in  1868-'70,  and  it  has  long  been  an  open  secret  that  they 
were  intended  for  operations  in  American  ports  in  case  of  possible 
war  growing  out  of  the  Alabama  claims'  negotiations  then  pending. 
It  is  eminently  fair,  therefore,  to  make  the  comparison  between  our 
vessels  rebuilt  in  1870-'78  expressly  for  the  defense  of  our  ports,  and 
these  British  vessels  designed  and  built  previously,  expressly  to  at- 
tack them. 

The  aggregate  displacement  of  the  six  British  vessels  is  23,370  tons, 
or  140  tons  less  than  the  aggregate  of  our  thirteen.  Their  total  cost 
was  $4,756,790.  This  sum  is  exclusive  of  armament,  and  the  cost  of 
these  vessels  has  been* therefore  about  $203  per  ton  displacement, 
.much  less  than  one-half  the  cost  of  ours. 

The  next  step  in  this  comparison  is  that  of  efficiency.  The  meas- 
ures for  determining  comparative  efficiency  of  this  class  of  vessels 
.are,  weight  and  penetrating  power  of  armament,  resisting  power  of 
armor,  speed  and  maneuvering  qualities,  economy  of  motive  power, 
fuel  capacity,  sea-going  qualities,  and  crew  accommodations.  These 
are  the  qualifications  that  would  decide  an  action.  Our  thirteen 
serviceable  iron-clads  mount  twenty-four  15-inch  and  two  11-inch 
smooth-bore  guns,  weighing  with  the  carriages  750  tons,  which  gives 
about  thirty-one  tons  of  displacement  for  every  ton  of  armament. 

The  British  fleet  mounts  eighteen  10-inch  and  two  12-inch  rifles 
and  four  64-pounders,  aggregating  in  weight,  including  carriages, 
590  tons,  giving  about  39  tons  of  displacement  to  every  ton  of  arma- 


29 


ment.  The  relative  powers  of  the  two  armaments  are  best  arrived 
at  by  a  comparison  between  the  American  15-inch  smooth-bore  and 
British  10-inch  rifle,  and  this  is  certainly  not  unfair  to  the  American 
vessels. 

The  American  15-inch  smooth-bore  will  penetrate  or  rather  crush 
its  way  through  8f  inches  of  solid  iron  armor  at  1,000  yards,  pro- 
vided the  projectile  does  not  break  up  on  impact.  The  British  10- 
inch  rifle  will  penetrate  12  inches  of  solid  iron  at  1,000  yards  with 
much  less  likelihood  of  the  shot  breaking  up  on  impact.  In  order 
that  the  thirteen  American  iron-clads  should  be  able  to  engage  the 
six  British  ones  on  equal  terms,  considering  the  relative  penetrating 
power  of  their  armaments,  the  resisting  power  of  the  armor  on  the 
American  vessels  should  be  at  least  one  and  a  half  times  that  of  the 
latter. 

Instead  of  this  we  find  that  the  British  vessels  have  iron  armor  va- 
rying in  thickness  from  9  inches  to  12  inches  on  the  turrets  and  from 
6  inches  to  8  inches  on  their  sides,  both  backed  by  timber  from  9 
inches  to  14  inches  thick,  while  the  armor  of  our  vessels  nowhere  ex- 
ceeds 6£  inches  and  is  generally  3  inches  to  5  inches  in  thickness 
without  backing  of  any  consequence.  While  the  armament  of  the 
British  vessels  exceeds  in  power  that  of  the  American  37  per  cent., 
the  British  armor  has  more  than  double  the  resisting  power.  The 
six  British  vessels  could  take  up  a  position  1,000  yards  distant  from 
the  thirteen  American,  and  proceed  to  destroy  them  without  risk  oi 
injury. 

Considering  that  the  thirteen  serviceable  iron-clads  were  rebuilt 
and  substantially  repaired  expressly  to  defend  our  ports  against  the 
British  fleet  built  to  attack  them,  we  naturally  expect  to  find  vast 
superiority  in  the  next  most  important  measure  of  efficiency,  namely, 
speed  and  maneuvering  qualities,  for  with  superior  speed  our  thir- 
teen vessels  would  soon  dispose  of  the  six  British,  without  regard 
to  power  of  guns  and  resistance  of  armor,  by  doubling  up  on  them 
aud  ramming  them.  Turning  to  the  source  of  information  on  this 
all-important  point,  and  accepting  as  accurate  the  American  esti- 
mate both  of  their  own  and  of  the  British  vessels,  we  find  that  the 
maximum  speed  of  the  American  vessels  is  recorded  as  from  u  five  to 
six  knots  per  hour,"  while  the  maximum  speed  of  the  slowest  of  the 
six  British  vessels  is  eleven  knots  per  hour,  or  double  that  of  the 
American.  It  does  not  require  a  trained  naval  mind  to  appreciate 
the  advantage  of  double  speed,  double  resisting  power  of  armor,  and 
nearly  one-half  more  powerful  armament  in  a  naval  action. 

As  to  maneuvering  qualities,  double  speed  necessarily  involves 
vast  superiority  in  this  respect.  The  disparity  between  our  thirteen 
vessels  and  the  six  British  becomes  still  more  painfully  apparent 
when  the  fact  that  ours  are  all  single  screw  and  the  British  all 
twin  screw  is  stated.  Twin  screws  enable  a  vessel  to  turn  almost 
without  change  of  position,  while  a  single  screw  necessitates  a  radi- 
cal change  of  position  in  order  to  turn  the  direction  of  the  vessel's 
bow.  With  one-half  the  speed  we  may  with  confidence  expect  to 
find  that  our  thirteen  vessels  were  more  economical  in  the  consump- 
tion of  coal  and  had  much  larger  relative  storage  capacity  for  fuel 
than  the  six  British.  But  even  in  this  reasonable  expectation  we 
are  doomed  to  disappointment.  The  highest  consumption  of  coal 
per  indicated  horse-power  per  hour  of  the  six  British  vessels  is  2f 
pounds,  while  the  lowest  for  the  thirteen  American  is  about  3£ 
pounds. 

The  fuel  capacity  of  the  former  enables  them  to  steam  a  distance 


30 


of  2,300  knots,  while  that  of  the  latter  limits  them  to  about  nine  hun- 
dred miles.  A  fleet  composed  of  the  six  British  vessels  could  readily- 
steam  across  the  Atlantic  from  Plymouth  dock-yard  to  Saint  John's, 
Newfoundland,  the  distance  being  1,900  miles ;  but  a  fleet  composed  of 
the  thirteen  American  vessels  could  not  venture  to  steam  from  Boston 
to  Saint  John's,  as  they  would  have  no  coal  left  on  reaching  that  port. 
These  comparisons  may  be  tedious,  but  they  are  significant  in  deter- 
mining the  relative  efficiency  of  the  two  fleets  for  war  operations. 

The  two  remaining  measures  of  efficiency  for  comparing  the  British 
and  American  vessels  are  sea-going  qualities  and  crew  accommoda- 
tions. The  superior  sea-going  qualities  of  the  six  British  vessels  is 
fully  demonstrated  by  the  fact  that  they  have  all  made  sea  voyages 
without  escorts,  while  not  one  of  the  thirteen  American  vessels  has 
ever  been  trusted  at  sea  without  an  escort  and  in  tow.  As  to  crew 
accommodations  the  American  vessels  are  notoriously  deficient,  while 
the  British  are  famous  for  the  ample  space  provided  for  their  crews. 
It  is  impossible  to  arrive  at  the  exact  figures,  but  an  estimate  of  the 
cubic  contents  of  the  inhabited  spaces  of  the  two  fleets  indicate  that 
the  British  officer  and  sailor  are  allotted  three  times  the  space  that 
is  allotted  to  the  American. 

In  the  event  of  a  war  with  Great  Britain,  if  we  were  allowed  to 
select  from  the  serviceable  armored  vessels  of  the  British  navy  a  fleet 
equal  in  tonnage  to  our  thirteen  "  serviceable  iron-clad  vessels,"  the 
six  vessels  with  which  they  are  composed  are  the  very  ones  we  would 
select,  and  the  last  ones  England  would  send  against  us,  because 
they  are  regarded  there  as  no  longer  efficient  fighting  vessels.  The 
vessels  that  England  could  send  to  operate  against  our  thirteen  serv- 
iceable iron-clads  are  as  superior  to  those  with  which  our  vessels 
have  been  compared  as  those  are  to  our  vessels.  The  lesson  taught 
by  all  this  is  clearly  that  the  officers  who  are  responsible  for  spend- 
ing such  vast  sums  in  reparing  and  rebuilding  obsolete  types  of  ves- 
sels, and  in  building  new  vessels  of  such  inferior  qualities,  ought  not 
to  be  trusted  with  the  expenditure  of  any  more  money  for  rebuilding 
the  Navy. 

THE  BUREAU  SYSTEM  A  FAILURE. 

The  irresponsible  bureau  system  has  been  tried  and  has  utterly 
failed.  The  engineers  and  constructors  who  have  heretofore  exerted 
the  predominant  influence  in  the  Navy  Department  have  proved  them- 
selves unworthy  of  confidence  and  incapable  of  designing  a  modern 
vessel  of  war.  They  retain  their  powerful  influence  over  legislation 
and  over  the  Navy  solely  because  they  control  the  expenditure  of  the 
largest  part  of  the  naval  appropriation  and  know  how  to  use  the 
secret  but  irresistible  influence  of  contractors. 

The  time  has  come  when  an  end  must  be  made  to  this  baneful  sys- 
tem of  administration.  I  have  entered  into  this  long  and  tedious  ex- 
amination of  the  facts  disclosed  by  the  imperfect  replies  to  my  reso- 
lution of  inquiry,  demonstrating  that  the  Navy  u  constructed"  by 
the  gentleman  from  New  Jersey  [Mr.  Robeson]  was  bad  in  design, 
extravagant  in  cost,  worthless  in  its  results,  not  in  order  to  cast  oblo- 
quy on  him,  but  in  order  to  show  that  the  existing  system,  the  same 
system  which  prevailed  when  he  was  Secretary,  ought  to  be  over- 
thrown, and  that  not  a  dollar  should  be  appropriated  for  completing 
monitors  or  building  new  ships  until  a  supervising  board  is  created, 
to  be  composed  of  the  best  trained  officers  of  the  Navy  in  their  re- 
spective departments,  into  whose  hands  the  work  of  planning  and 
building  a  new  navy  shall  be  placed.  To  pursue  any  other  course  is  to 
invite  a  repetition  of  the  scandals,  of  the  blunders,  and  of  the  dis- 


31 


grace  which  are  connected  with  the  administration  of  the  Navy 
since  the  close  of  the  war. 

ARMAMENT. 

I  had  intended  to  say  something  in  regard  to  guns,  but  the  sub- 
ject is  too  large  for  present  treatment.  But  guns  must  precede  ships. 
We  have  not  a  single  gun  in  the  Navy  which  to-day  is  of  any  real 
value.  It  will  require  three  years  to  produce  the  first  cast-steel  10- 
inch  rifled  gun  for  either  the  monitors  or  the  new  ships. 

Why  then  worry  now  in  an  appropriation  bill  about  monitors  or 
new  ships,  when  we  have  made  and  are  making  no  provision  for 
the  armament  ?  The  condition  precedent  is  a  100-ton  steam-hammer. 
This  does  not  exist  in  this  country.  It  will  cost  a  million  of  dollars 
and  cannot  be  built  in  less  than  two  or  three  years. 

If  we  had  an  advisory  board  of  control  they  would  not  ask  for 
monitors  or  new  ships  now,  but  they  would  ask  us  to  get  ready  to 
produce  guns,  without  whch  ships  are  of  no  use.  In  this  respect 
the  appropriation  bill  is  fatally  defective,  and  the  only  safe  thing 
is  to  strike  out  the  items  which  give  money  for  ships  we  cannot  arm, 
and  make  provision  for  building  the  guns  which  must  be  ready  when 
the  ships  are  built. 


< 


